


RWBY High School AU (even tho they attend high school in canon)

by bemse



Category: RWBY
Genre: (i'm just slow I promise), (they all gonna get together), Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Semblances (RWBY), Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Humor, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2019-11-01 15:25:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 33,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17869799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bemse/pseuds/bemse
Summary: Just a RWBY high school AU fic. What more can u ask for :3





	1. First Day Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ruby Rose is starting her first year of high school today, and she gets a tour of the school from a new potential friend ;) Blake Belladonna is sick of the person she’s with and wishes to rekindle an old relationship <3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Approx date of publication: Feb 20, 2019; 2300/11pm CST

Yang pulls into a space along the side of the building. Being this early means that the parking lot is practically empty. Most of the faculty and staff designated spaces are filled and the student spots that are taken up probably come from people who are also there for new student orientation. She turns off Bumblebee’s engine and gets off, shortly followed by her sister, Ruby.

“Well, this is it,” Yang sighs, taking off her helmet, “Your first day of high school!” Ruby removes her red helmet gingerly off her head, looking down on the pavement. Yang notices this and supports the other girl’s shoulders, “Hey… Rubes,” she giggles, “It’s okay to be nervous. I was hella scared on my first day, too.”

Ruby grumbles at Yang’s cliche, “That’s not it, Yang. I didn’t have that many friends last year… and… I just don’t wanna be alone…” Droplets of tears were swelling from her silver eyes and Yang took the liberty to wipe them away. Ruby would’ve been embarrassed for crying on the first day of school, but since no one was around, she felt safe with her sister by her side.

“Ruby,” Yang paused, thinking of what to say, “You’ll make a friend here. You’ll have plenty of friends! Don’t worry about it.” Ruby looked up at Yang’s lilac irises. “That’s why I dragged your butt at seven in the morning to orientation.”

The younger girl flung her arms at her sister to laugh, “Okay, stop! I get it, I’ll go before I’m late.”

Yang watched her sister sling a backpack the size of her weight over her shoulder and head to the gymnasium. The cool morning autumn breeze blew her golden flowing locks as she stared at Ruby’s back. She noticed a scraggly tall boy with blonde hair holding a map following her lead. Yang thought he was probably a new student, too. On the corner of her eye, she spotted a pearl white limo pull up along the side of the curb. A young girl with pale white skin and snowy hair long enough to compete with Yang’s exited the back seat. But before closing the door, she hesitates, looking back from where she came from. Probably talking to someone? Yang assumed. Once the conversation was allegedly over, she slammed the door of the limo and pivoted her heels away from the car. Said girl walked straight into the same place Ruby was headed. That girl was Weiss Schnee, and Yang was confident Weiss was not new to Beacon High School.

* * *

There were not that many students in attendance at the orientation. She expected a whole bunch of people since freshman counted as new students, but maybe it was just her anxiety talking. Ruby walks up to the tables next to the door. “Um, hi, I’m here for orientation.” She said to the volunteer. She quickly asked for her name and Ruby obliged, “Ruby Rose.”

The girl behind the table turns around and grabs a few items from a box. Placing them in front of her on the table, “Nice to meet you, Ruby! I’m Velvet.” Ruby manages to squeak in a hi as Velvet continues, “Here is your nametag and your class schedule.”

Ruby takes the items from her, “Thank you!” She takes the nametag and immediately sticks it on her chest, “Oof.” She exclaims, bumping into someone. “Sorry, my bad…” Tilting her head up, the boy in front of her looks just as lost as she is. He’s at least a head and a half taller than Ruby.

“Heh, no problem.” The boy brushes off. “I’m Jaune,” he sticks his hand out, “I’m new here… well, that’s pretty obvious isn’t it…” But before Ruby had a chance to shake his hand, he uses both his hands and cups the back of his neck. “Sorry, I’m sort of lost.” His entire body language screams embarrassment; Ruby’s glad she’s not him.

“So is it ‘Jaune,’ ‘new here,’ or ‘sort of lost?’” Ruby interjects.

“Huh? Oh.” Jaune realizes his mistake and they both laugh. “It’s Jaune… Arc.”

“I’m Ruby Rose! Nice to meet you, Jaune.” They finally shake hands.

He breaks away from their grip first, “Hey, would you happen to know where I can get my schedule?” Jaune asks looking confused and embarrassed as ever.

Ruby mirrored her new acquaintance’s confusion. “Yeah… the table near the door.” Although she was glad to help, she thought the boy was kind of nuts.

“Thanks.” He says before walking away.

Ruby stands in the middle of the gym, looking around the walls of the place. She’s been here before since Yang has her wrestling competitions here sometimes, but the place almost seems foreign. The bleachers are collapsed to the wall instead of protruding out for games. Instead of worn-out mats on the floor, the ground is streaky wood for gym class. The walls are the same, though. Massive photos of sports teams cover the perimeter of the gym. The first face Ruby recognizes is Yang’s--standing tall and proud next to her coach. On the other side of the same picture is Pyrrha Nikos. Ruby has only seen Pyrrha around Yang and only when they’re doing school stuff like wrestling or homework.

Before school started, Yang and Pyrrha were getting some training in before the new season. Pyrrha mentioned that she was giving a tour for new student orientation and the reason why Ruby was here today. Ruby promised to at least say hi. She always liked Pyrrha, even if it was just around Yang.

The main gym doors slammed open, breaking Ruby’s thoughts, as high heels clicked along the wood floor. “You’re late.” The volunteer assisting Velvet confronted the person.

“I’m here. That’s all that matters.” The mysterious girl spat. Ruby was not liking the attitude of this girl.

The volunteer rolled her eyes, “Ugh, listen Pyrrha already offered to give the first round of tours, so you’ll have to do the next one.”

“Ooh, Pyrrha Nikos is also lending a hand,” her voice shifted to a more cheery tone, “Such a generous soul.”

“Weiss,” the girl sighed, “Can you not? It’s so early in the morning and I want to be here just as much as you.” So the mean girl has a name, Ruby thought. The nameless girl leads Weiss in the girls’ locker room, probably where Pyrrha is, too.

“Whoa,” Jaune’s voice snuck behind Ruby, “That’s Weiss Schnee.”

“Weiss Schnee?” Ruby repeats, “You know her?”

“Know of her.” Jaune corrects, “Heiress. Singer. Model. She’s practically a goddess.” He swoons.

Ruby turns to see Jaune nearly drooling on that girl. Her stomach grumbles, “Man, have you eaten breakfast yet? I’m starving.”

“They have some muffins over here.” Jaune leads the way as Ruby drools on the thought of muffins.

* * *

In the girls’ locker room, Weiss and Coco walk toward the other girls leading the tours, Pyrrha and Ilia. “I’m gonna let the three of you get to know each other. I’ll be back to brief you all on where to take the newcomers.” Coco leaves without another word.

“Hello, I’m--”

“Pyrrha Nikos.” Weiss finishes, “Of course. I’m Weiss Schnee.” She does a little bow. Ilia rolls her eyes loud enough for Weiss to hear. “I’m sorry, what was that for?”

She raises her hands up in defense, “Nothing,” Ilia chuckles, “I swear. Ilia Amitola, nice to meet you.”

“Ilia was just just talking to me about the school musical.” Pyrrha breaks the tension between the two.

“Oh yeah, Goodwitch was telling us before the break that--”

“--That sounds nice.” Weiss interrupts, “So Pyrrha, how was your summer?”

Pyrrha gives Weiss the details of her trip to Greece, and Weiss hung onto every word. Weiss became infatuated with Pyrrha during last year’s pep rally. It was the last one of the year and the sport teams were giving their last hoorah of the school season. She saw Pyrrha’s red hair locks in the sea of the school’s other wrestlers and was amazed. Ever since that day, Weiss has been awaiting for the girls’ wrestling season to begin so that she may witness the girl in action.

Weiss noticed the other girl, Ilia, on her phone, missing out on history being told in front of them. She appears to be texting someone…

“Alright,” Coco barges in, “So here’s what’s going down…” Ilia drops her phone and gives her full attention to the junior in front of them. Weiss, half listening, is still perplexed by the other girl. _Was it the ponytail?_ No, that’s silly, she has one, too. Weiss turns her attention fully on Coco as she lists the places the three of them should go: english halls, math halls, history halls, science halls, cafeteria, and “Since the library is located in the middle of campus, it should be the perfect stopping point for the tours.” Coco checks the time on her phone, “It’s 7:30 now. Pyrrha, you ready to show these young minds into the hell of what is high school?”

“Gladly.” Pyrrha questions. She exits the locker room away from Weiss.

Coco turns to Ilia, “Hey, I don’t think we’ll have enough time for three tours, do you think you could go to the library and wait there in case the newbies get lost?”

“Sure.” Ilia jumps off the bench and out the doors. That’s what was wrong, Weiss thought, it was the way she way sitting.

“Now,” Coco interjects her thoughts, “You will take whoever Pyrrha doesn’t get to. It may be ten people, it may be three… I don’t care.” Weiss follows her out the locker room to find only two people left standing in the gym: a tall boy with blonde hair and a girl next to him. To Weiss he looks… obnoxious, which was not great for Weiss. Maybe that girl could help her prevent talking to him. “Ruby, Jaune…” Coco peers at their nametags, “This is Weiss, she will be your tour guide today. Your last stop will be at the library, and another volunteer there can help you find your first class. Weiss can point her out.” Coco pats Weiss’s shoulder, “Have fun.” She walks away as she and Velvet head out the gym doors.

\---

“Oh boy.” Ruby thought the entire tour. Weiss was her and Jaune’s guide. “Why didn’t I just go with Pyrrha?” Ruby kept thinking to herself. Because she wanted to eat her muffin. Because she also wanted to stay with Jaune, a friend. Not that Pyrrha wasn’t nice and all, but Jaune insisted on waiting for the next tour because the one Pyrrha led was pretty packed. They would almost be having a private tour. Ruby was dragging behind the two. One, her backpack was filled with brand new notebooks and binders, so it was as heavy as her, and two, she didn’t want to mess with Weiss. She was walking so gracefully as they enter the history halls. Ruby was able to get a glance of her classroom, Mr. Port. They slowed down for the third time, Jaune and Ruby waiting for what Weiss has to say.

“Here we have all the history classrooms, well, most of them at least.” Weiss wasn’t doing such a terrible job, in Ruby’s opinion. Ruby notices Weiss’s ice blue eyes on her, “You’ll have geography, right? Who’s your teacher?”

“Port.”

“Ah, I had him last year, too. He’s a talented professor, but he can go crazy sometimes.” Weiss chucked at herself.

“I have Mr. Oobleck for world history,” Jaune spoke up, “How ‘bout you, Weiss?”

Ruby saw Weiss play nice toward Jaune’s advances. He would frequently butter up to her whenever he got the chance. They didn’t go too far from this history hall before Weiss stopped them, “So here we have the public bathrooms. If you two either need to go, go now because I wish to end this fairly quickly.” Weiss said impatiently.

Jaune is the first one to move, “Guess I’ll head to the little boys’ room,” giving Weiss a quick wink. She rolled her eyes at him while his back turned.

Before Ruby could even decide she wanted to go in or not, Weiss grabbed her by the hood of her sweatshirt, and pulled her off to the side, “Listen, Ruby, right?”

“Yeah?” “Do you mind doing me a favor? Just for the remaining duration of the tour…” Weiss begged.

“Okay?”

“Can you please stop John whenever he becomes a little too much?”

“What do you mean by that exactly? Also, his name is Jaune.”

“Jean, whatever, it’s like his presence is unintentionally sort of creepy. I’m sure he’s a nice person, but I really wasn’t hoping to deal with someone like him today.”

Ruby was in a position she wasn’t expecting to be in. She gets what Weiss is saying when it comes to Jaune, but Jaune is like a puppy, he’s perfectly innocent, “I’m sorry… I don’t think I can do that. I mean, I’ve only known Jaune for like an hour, but he’s friendly.” She notices Weiss’s head shaking in disbelief.

Before saying anything further, Weiss unbuttons her cardigan. There was a light brown stain on her white top. Looks fresh, too. “Ruby, I’ve had a day. And it’s only, like, 8 o'clock.” She gently rubs the side of her face, smudging her makeup. “As a girl, I hoped you would’ve understand. Guys like Jaune, I’m sure they mean well, only care about me for my name.” She buttons her cardigan, perfectly concealing the coffee stain. “The minute he started talking to me, I knew, and I am not going to have it. Not today at least.” Invisible tears were forming in her crystal blue eyes. Ruby has seen her sister in a similar position.

She listened to Weiss intensely. If this girl with an attitude, well at least Ruby thought, is capable of showing tolerance, then so should Ruby, “Don’t worry about Jaune. Just finish the tour, and I’ll deal with him.”

For the first time, Weiss observed Ruby’s face. The look in her silver eyes showed too many mixed emotions. She was putting this young girl in a spot she has probably never been in before. Nonetheless, Weiss was eternally grateful.

* * *

On the other side of campus Blake stood in front of Adam’s locker. He texted her the night before that they meet up there before school. This was always their thing--meeting in either his or her locker every morning. *Adam and Blake started seeing each other when she was a freshman, and officially started dating the end of that year. Now she was a junior, and he’s about to graduate.

Breaking away from her thoughts, Adam entered the building. His streaks of red hair contrasting his blue eyes instantly caught the attention of the other students around him. Blake noticed this right away, and was surprised at the difference. “Hey babe,” He says nonchalantly.

“Adam… your hair… it’s so different.” She prayed that sounded like a compliment.

Shoving books in his locker, he smirked, “Well I just thought I would do whatever over the summer. Like what you did for two whole months.” He slams the locker, startling Blake, “Hope you don’t mind it.” He leans on his locker, waiting for her response.

She thought long and hard about what to say next, “You mean the two months I spent working at a summer camp?” Blake dialed down her frustration at him.

“Yeah,” he stepped closer, “That. You could’ve called me y’know.”

“We were in the middle of nowhere. There’s no cell reception.”

“Wrong. I was able to call the main office. Easy fix.”

“I was working the whole time.” She could feel the grind of her teeth, “When would I have the time to even call you?” She couldn’t believe it. They were having a fight, a pretty big one, right in front of everyone’s eyes.

His demeanor started to tense, “You’re right.” Taking a deep breath, “It’s my fault. I wanted to keep in touch with you. I wanted to spend our last summer together,” he rests his forearms on her shoulders, “but I guess you didn’t want that.”

He was doing it again, Blake thought. She desperately wanted to know which one of them was the victim. “Hey,” she cooed, gently cupping his cheek, “I just thought that if I saved up, we could have a really nice homecoming dance.” She half lied.

“Really?” He asks, giving her a crooked smile. She nods, pulling the hair away from her face. Adam decides to break the distance between them with a kiss. Blake’s kisses with Adam didn’t even feel intimate anymore. They were just things couple’s did, and they wanted to show that.

A cough breaks them apart. Blake looks over Adam’s shoulder to find Cinder standing behind him. “For tonight.” She’s holding up a brown paper bag for Adam’s eyes. He takes a peek in the bag and quickly adds it to the pile in his locker.

Pretending to mind her business, Blake overhears their conversation. “Cardin is a real cheap shit.” He slips some cash in Cinder’s hand, “His supply better be worth it.”

She shrugs, “It’s better than nothing,” and accidentally meets amber eyes over the boy’s shoulder. Adam briefly notices this and turns his head to face his girl. Cinder sneaks past the two.

“So…” Blake sways a bit, before the can finish her sentence, Adam caresses her jaw and leans in for another kiss. Embracing her afterward, he whispers, “I’m having a party at my house tonight. I really want you to be there. You mean the world to me, Blake.”

She tunes out after that. It was a school night, and a party is far from the first thing she needs from today. But knowing Adam, she probably doesn’t have another choice.

* * *

It’s thirty minutes before the first class of the day begins--the first class of the school year. Blake looks around her English classroom to find at least one familiar face. Better, she found golden long hair buried deep in a book. She walks over to sit down next to the girl, but before she does, a little fire emoji eraser catches her eye. She picks it up from the table and flings it at the girl. “Ow. Hey.” Yang exclaims, perplexed.

Blake chuckles, “Didn’t see me, did you?” She slides in the seat next to her, waiting for class to start. Shaking her head, Yang returns to her book, “I see your behind on the summer reading list.” She teased.

“Behind?” Yang drops the book to show her the cover, “Psh, I’m all caught up! This is for next summer.” The girls laugh at Yang’s amusement. Blake hasn’t laughed like that in a long time. “Speaking of,” Yang tucks in the fire emoji eraser inside the pages of the book, “Tell me about your summer!” She gets comfortable, placing her feet on the chair.

Blake rests her elbow on the table, “My summer was pretty good. Went to summer school for P.E.--”

“Wait, you summer schooled P.E.?!” Blake gave Yang the death stare, “Sorry,” she presses her palms together, “my bad, keep going.”

“After summer school I worked at a summer camp for two months.” Blake’s job at the summer camp was fairly mundane. It wasn’t even the really outdoorsy kind where kids climb ropes and swim in lakes. It was for professional students, hoping to get an edge in the business, politics, or technology world. She would see a fourteen-year-old wearing a suit or dress way too big for them at least once a week. Blake’s job was to serve food for the kids. They served four meals a day and she bussed some tables a few times to end the shifts early. It was a lot of work for her, but the job paid well, when her father offered her the position, she took it. She didn’t lie to Adam when she said she wanted to save up some money, she just didn’t tell him the money was for her personal use only. The camp was also coincidentally in the middle of nowhere, so she knew Adam lied to her when he said he was able to call the main office. “How rude of me,” Blake had been rambling about her summer, she almost forgot about the violet eyes beaming right at her, “How was your summer, Yang? How’s Ruby?”

Yang started telling her story of the family road trip she took with her dad, sister, and uncle. She pulled out her phone to show her some pictures. Yang gave her phone to Blake and opened an album labeled “Summer Road Trip <3” in her gallery. Blake swiped through the photos on the phone. Some of them she’s seen from Yang’s instagram and snapchat stories. A lot of them feature her and Ruby, with and without filters on their faces. There are some scenic pictures of mountains, canyons, and lakes. Then Blake comes across a few selfies of Yang. Showing off her outfits in the mirror and one with her only wearing a sports bra and Nike shorts. Yang brings up her uncle driving an entire twelve hours back home, which was Blake’s cue to swipe away from Yang’s pic to an image of Ruby asleep in the car. She gives the girl her phone back, laughing, “Oh my god, I promised Ruby I wouldn’t show anyone else this picture.” Yang gives Blake a sly smile, “Promise you won’t tell?”

The bell rings just as Blake was about to respond, the teacher and a few other students file in the classroom. Blake looks at Yang and zips her pressed lips. The girl next to her silently giggles, but Blake could’ve sworn she heard it. Man, it has been a while since she and Yang had this much fun. The two were really close before high school. They were even almost inseparable. In the eighth grade, Blake was harassed by a certain girl with white hair and her friends. News spread around like crazy and the only person who wanted it to stop was Yang. She was Blake’s personal bodyguard from then on out. In the morning, Yang would wait for Blake’s carpool, even joining a few times, and escort her for the entire day. For the first couple weeks, Blake felt like a burden to Yang. This girl was leaving class early to walk over to Blake’s class and coming in her next class late, just to keep Blake safe. She was getting tardies left and right, earning a reputation from teachers that she’s a troublemaker, when she was the complete opposite of Yang. “It’s worth it.” Yang told Blake one time when waiting for Blake’s car. “I threw a bloody tampon at Schnee today while you were in the bathroom.”

“Yang!” Blake burst out laughing, “What the heck, that’s so gross!”

“Relax, I never said it was my tampon.” She playfully pushed Yang on the shoulder.

That continued on until high school. Weiss was a grade behind, so Blake didn’t even encounter Weiss that year. Yang and Blake also started seeing less and less of each other. In the past two years, Yang has been dominating in girls’ wrestling, and she’s been hanging out with the other sport teams. A similar thing happened to Blake, she’s been seeing Adam and started hanging out with his friends. Granted, they weren’t exactly the most picture perfect people, but she had someone. Blake sometimes wonders if things would be different if she and Yang stayed close. She knows wrestling is her passion, but maybe she would be good in theatre--like building sets and stuff. They have English together this year, that was at least something. She needs to ask Yang about the rest of her schedule.

The dismissal bell rings. Students begin packing and head out for their next class. “See ya, Blake.” Yang props the door with a wedge, Blake takes this opportunity to rebuild a shaky bridge.

“Hold on,” she catches up to her, “do you have a second, Yang?”

“Um, well my next class is science and it’s pretty far…”

“I have science, too. Let’s walk.”

Yang can’t argue with that, they exchange schedules while walking, checking to see if they have any other shared classes together. It looks like they have the same elective together: creative writing. Blake didn’t know Yang likes to write, “It’s an easy A,” taking her schedule back, “Practically a blow off class.”

“Speaking of blow off,” Blake segues, “Adam’s having a party tonight, are you in or are you in?” The girls are just outside the entrance to the science halls with five minutes to spare. Blake was confident Yang would enjoy a decent party. That was her whole schtick. But Yang gave Blake the answer she wasn’t expecting: hesitation. The bright purple eyes Yang always has when they’re around faded. She was thinking about not going, and Blake could see it in her eyes.

_Her eyes look like a desperate plea_ , Yang thought. She’s known Blake a long time, not recently, but long enough, to know that a party thrown by a senior wasn’t her thing. A party on a school night even. She probably has her reasons to attend in the first place, but Yang keeps thinking about those amber eyes. The same eyes and look on her face on the day they became friends. There must be something going down tonight. “Yeah, I’m down.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: First Day Part 2
> 
> *Don't worry, goatman won't be here much longer


	2. First Day Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> almuerzo y fiesta

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Approx date of publication: Mar 1, 2019; 0030/12:30am CST
> 
> yo this chapter has a mention of attempted rape. If ur sensitive to that, I'll insert a bolded *** around that section, don't worry u won't miss much :)
> 
> p.s. updated the tags
> 
> Also, thanks SJ for ur help earlier!

Lunchtime rolls around. Honestly, this was probably the time of day Ruby dreaded the most. When her sister started high school, Ruby knew she would be alone for a while. Sure, Ruby had friends here and there, but neither of them were permanent. She remembered Penny, a girl who moved to town during the middle of the school year. She and Ruby were super close--they shared the same interests and hung out after school practically every day. Penny was the one who got her into video games, and that really matters to Ruby. But one day… Penny just left. She left without a word, without a trace, and Ruby assumed she moved back to the country where she came from, but it probably doesn’t matter now. All Ruby wanted to do was eat her lunch.

Her first stop would be her locker to grab the books she needed for the rest of the day’s classes. After the tour, Ruby was able to find her locker and dumped half the stuff she had in her backpack. An entire twenty-four count box of pencils? Who knows, a kid in her class could need a pencil. Seven erasers that look like candy? Hey, a girl can have options. Four three inch three-ring binders? At least one for each class of the day. A graphing calculator? Had more functions than a regular scientific calculator, that’s for sure. Yang never stopped her from getting all those supplies at the bookstore. She referred it as a common Freshman Thing to have a ton of stuff when people start high school. Her sister is living proof--after three years all Yang has are an eraser, one paper folder, and her favorite pen.

Once Ruby closed her locker, she heads to the cafeteria to the lunchline. A terrible mistake has already been made. The queue was already long enough to stretch across the other side of the cafeteria. There are at least 100 people in line, but Ruby didn’t have the patience to count. She might as well get in line. While she waited, she looked around the sea of students for her sister. Ruby found her shortly after, a tray in hand full of food, and heading to a table where Pyrrha happens to be sitting at. She watches Yang place her tray down on top of the table and takes a seat right next to the other junior. But before taking a bite to eat, Yang scans the room, probably looking for her, Ruby helps her out and waves her arms over her head, hoping Yang would notice. Luckily enough, she spots her, giving her a gentle nod.

A few minutes go by, and the queue is a bit shorter. For the time being, she checks between Yang having her lunch and her phone, which was at thirty percent. Ruby constantly tells herself to reduce her phone usage, but that was nearly impossible when she likes to listen to music between classes. Lately she’s been into heavy rock. Rock music gives her energy throughout the day; Yang thinks otherwise, and Ruby was already practically a living coffeebean. Speaking of her sister, Ruby looks back at Yang and Pyrrha once more, a few new bodies join the two. Jaune, who she met earlier, plops down next to Pyrrha. The two other people, who Ruby was sure hasn’t met before, take the other seats next to him. The two new faces introduce Jaune to the girls. Ruby will probably join her sister, Pyrrha, and Jaune for lunch since she really doesn’t know anyone else.

\---

Finally getting her food from the queue, Ruby pays for her meal and makes her way to the table. Then a jarring sight catches her eye: Weiss Schnee… eating lunch all by herself. She was the last person Ruby expected to be having lunch alone. From what she remembered from Jaune, he made her sound pretty popular. Or at least the popular type. The table Weiss is sitting at is a closer proximity than where Yang was. Ruby takes decisive action, “Can I sit here?” She waited for the older girl’s answer before making a move.

Weiss sighs, “It’s all yours.” Her eyes meet the same silver eyes she recognized earlier that day, “Oh my goodness. Ruby,” her cold stoic demeanor melts away, “I had no idea you have this lunch period.”

Ruby goes ahead and takes the seat next to Weiss, “Yeah, well, I had the same reaction, too. I found out when I went to my class, and the teacher was all like ‘You all have lunch right now! Leave!’” Ruby made her voice deeper to impersonate her teacher, making Weiss chuckle.

“Oh my gosh, that sounds just like Port.” The two girls quickly become silent again, allowing Ruby to eat her lunch before the bell rings, and Weiss gathered her rubbish and dumped it in the bins. She bounces her leg under the table, causing the surface of the table to rattle; she notices this and moves her foot on the floor to stop. Once Weiss got back, Ruby initiates making a new friend. She wanted to hear about her summer, an easy question, but Weiss’s answer was extremely dull, “Singing lessons and fencing practice.” Ruby couldn’t believe it; she did all that for the entire summer? “For the entire summer,” Weiss stated.

A notification popped up on Ruby’s phone. It was a text message from Yang, all she sent was five milk emojis and a cow emoji. She immediately knew what it meant, “Oh! I’ll be right back!” The girl dashed to the other side of the cafeteria, out of Weiss’s sight and came back after thirteen seconds. “Milk!” She slams the carton of milk on the table, “Now I have two milk!” She yells excitedly.

Surprisingly, Weiss was very amused by this. “Why on Earth do you have two cartons of milk?”

“My sister is lactose intolerant so she lets me have her milk during lunch,” Ruby says as she opens both cartons of milk and feeds two straws in both of them, hoping to drink two milks at the same time.

“Your sister goes here?” She looks at the general direction Ruby came from, “Who’s your sister?”

Disappointed by the fact that the milk was failing to suck in both straws, she turns back to the other girl, “I’m sorry, can you repeat that?”

Weiss is sort of taken aback by the girl, yet amused, “Who’s your--?”

“Yang Xiao Long.” Ruby points at the general direction where Yang is.

Weiss’s heart dropped to her stomach, and she cursed to herself, “Really?” She peers past Ruby’s shoulder and sees Yang’s very confused face looking at everyone else at the table: Lie Ren, Nora Valkyrie, Jim, and Pyrrha Nikos! “I don’t believe I see the relation.” She says, hoping not to offend the girl.

Giving up on her milk, Ruby returns to her food, and answers Weiss, “We’re half-sisters.” Weiss nods understandably and Ruby asks, “So do you have any siblings?”

Her breath hitches and Weiss answers, “Yes I do. An older sister and a younger brother.”

“Middle child, huh? Oof.” Bored with her food, she turns her attention completely to the other girl. “So umm… Jaune mentioned you being a princess..?” She asks curiosity written all over her face.

The corner of her mouth smirks, “Heiress, actually.” Weiss corrects, amazing the girl who has a vague idea of what it means, “So my family owns a business--the largest multinational tech company in the world--and I basically take over when my father dies.” She explains the most basic way possible.

“Shouldn’t you knock on wood?” Ruby asks, understanding the gist of what Weiss said.

“Uh huh.” She doesn’t.

“Well my family owns a business, too! My dad and my uncle are co-founders, I guess.”

“Are you going to inherit the business in the future?” Weiss genuinely asks.

Ruby had to process exactly what Weiss just said, “Oh god, that’s a horrible idea.” She laughs to herself, the concept was just utterly ludicrous, “Maybe Yang would, she’s really smart.” So far, Ruby was enjoying Weiss’s company. She takes the time to appreciate her light blue cardigan she’s wearing that’s covering up that coffee stain on her white top. It really went well with the skirt that so happens to be matching with her heels. Man, she really knows how to make a first impression for school. Unlike Ruby, who was rushed this morning by Yang. She just threw on a red sweatshirt over a T-shirt she got during the roadtrip, which was lame ‘cause she couldn’t even show it off because she was wearing the hoodie. But she liked her hoodie, so maybe everything turned out all okay for her. Letting her mind wander off, not really remembering what she was thinking about in the first place, Ruby leaves the table to dispose of all the items on her tray, returning just in time to see Ilia walking over to their table.

“Hello, Ruby, Weiss. Would either of you be interested in the school musical?” The lesbian presents one of the flyers on top of the table. The flyer informs the musical’s upcoming interest meeting as well as a list of current crew members.

Ruby skims over the list and notices a name she hasn’t seen in a long time, “Oh Blake Belladonna! I know her!” She practically jumps in her seat.

“Yeah,” she returns Ruby’s excitement, “Blake’s in charge of costumes.”

“What are you doing Ilia?”

“I’m the stage manager.”

“Of course you are.” Weiss scoffs to herself. Well, at least she thought.

“Oh, well, look who’s talking,” Ilia teases. She clears her throat, adjusting her composure, “Weiss,” she says, trying to get the girl’s attention, “y’know the show could really use a singer of your…” Ilia finds the right words she’s looking for, “talent.”

Weiss crosses her arms, “That’s very kind of you Ilia, but I sing. I can’t act.”

Ilia decides to make herself comfortable, and sits on the table, “Okay… And the theatre kids act, but can’t really carry a tune.” She giggles at her own joke, neither Ruby nor Weiss found it humorous, “Look, what I’m trying to say is that we’re desperate. We haven’t had a decent audience for a show in years. On top of that, the school’s defunding the performing arts budget to increase… sports.”

“Hey, I’m a prospective track and field runner!” Ruby interjects.

“You see what I mean?” She says, not even looking back at Ruby.

Weiss looks between Ruby and Ilia, unfazed, “I’ll think about it.” She takes a look at the flyer on the table, also taking notice of the older girl on the crew list. “What do you think, Ruby?”

Ruby gives Ilia a worried look, “I don’t have to sing and dance, do I?”

“No. You could work behind the scenes with me and Blake! It’ll be fun!”

She’s extremely tempted to participate. Besides track and field, Ruby hasn’t thought about any other extracurricular activities. Anime club is a given, but it wasn’t intense enough to sweat over, “I’ll probably go to the interest meeting then.”

“Great!” Ilia hands her a flyer. She gets off the table and gives Weiss a single nod before moving on to the next table.

“So you’re thinking about doing track and field on top of the school musical?” Weiss asks the girl next to her.

Ruby looks over at her, “Yup.”

“That seems like quite a lot for a freshman.” Weiss checks the time on her phone, only a couple minutes before the end of lunch. “Do you mind if I get your number?”

* * *

It’s Monday night, and Yang was outside this douchebag’s house. She hasn’t been to a party in a few months. Dance clubs were more her scene lately, and a high school party was very far from it. All they do is get drunk or high, but Yang was driving Bumblebee tonight, she wasn’t going to let some random handle her precious baby.

Before walking in, Yang checks herself out in her bike’s mirror. She’s dressed for a party where she’ll be sober the entire time, but ready to throw hands if she needs to. After looking sharp and fine as ever, Yang walks across the street to Adam’s house and sees the party in full swing. God awful trap music was blasting from cheap Bluetooth speakers--empty beer cans and liquor bottles were already scattered all over the common areas and the kitchen.

After taking two steps in, “Yaaang!” Is echoed by some partygoers. The place wasn’t all that packed; she recognized the majority of the soccer players from school as well as the likes of the host’s friend group. Yang has always been the life of the party. She would host parties throughout the school year on several occasions, and her reputation has preceded her, granting her the opportunity to join the school’s official dance committee. Several faces, old and new, greet the blonde as she makes her rounds, hoping to find the girl who invited her.

“Yang!” Her ears perk up at the sound of Blake saying her name. Yang looks at her, wearing a dark purple dress, as she makes her way through the crowd to get to her. She goes in for a hug, “I’m glad you made it!”

Yang gently returns her hug, “I’m glad to be here.” She whispers loud enough for them to hear.

“Ahem.” A familiar masculine voice breaks their hug apart, “Yang, I wasn’t aware that Blake invited you.” Yang takes a long look at him. He’s standing there in his own house like a soldier. The expression on his face is stoic, just like his deadpan voice. His feet are planted so firmly on the floor, and his eyes are practically empty inside. His interior was so far off from how he presents himself on the outside: red hair and dressing like Lucky Luciano from the You Know I Have to Do It to Em meme. As a matter of fact, all the male soccer players were dressed like Taurus. Strange.

Blake returns to Adam’s side, “I invited Yang ‘cause she knows how to have a good time.” But Yang didn’t believe that.

He wraps an arm around Blake’s shoulders, “By all means, welcome to the party!” He leads her into the kitchen and Yang follows. “So, what’s your poison, Yang?”

“Water,” she answers, grabbing a bottle from the counter, “‘cause I’m driving.” Yang settles herself on the island, and twists the cap off her drink, taking a sip.

Adam grabs a green plastic cup from a stack and places it on the countertop across from Yang. “Blake, would you like another soda?” She answers with a yes, and he pours some Pepsi in the cup. He takes the cup and hands it to Blake, “You’re just gonna stare creepily at us?”

Yang wakes up from her observations as soon as he started talking, “No, uh, I don’t really feel like partying tonight.”

He cracks open a cold one, “So why’d you come?”

She shrugs, “Blake invited me. It would be rude to deny her invitation,” she lied.

He turns back to the dark-haired girl, “So, how’s the drink?”

“It’s good.” She says after taking a baby sip. Yang wondered why he asked her that if the drink was non-alcoholic.

“Enjoy the party, Yang.” Adam and Blake were out of the kitchen before Yang could say another word.

\---

Half an hour passed. Yang wandered between the kitchen and the living room. The game was on, so most of the guys were watching in anticipation of their team winning. She also wanted to check the score, not wanting to feel left out. This was probably how Ruby felt this morning. She peeked outside, in the backyard, and spots Sun Wukong and Neptune Vasilias chilling on lawn chairs. They were in her grade and were both prominent replacements in the varsity soccer team whenever Adam graduates. She hasn’t seen them in a while all night and decides to give them a hi. “Hey guys.”

They look up at her, blowing a vape cloud right in her face, “Yo, Yang perfect timing.” Sun drops his pen while Yang waves the smell of mint away, “We were wondering… since you’re in the wrestling team, could you, like, beat up all of the soccer team?”  

She giggles at Sun’s hypothetical situation, “Do you mean… would I fight all of you?” She asks him.

Neptune scoots to the edge of his seat, “And win… would you win.”

“Yes, win.” He emphasizes, “That would be so hot if you win.”

Neptune slaps the back of his head, “Hey, that’s not very woke of you, man.”

“No, man. You’re not woke. Get woke!” He tries to get up, but fails, “I’m all in for Yang kicking my ass, but I guess you don’t see it that way…”

Yang just rolls her eyes, “You guys are high as fuck.” She turns back to the house and spots Ilia and Adam in the kitchen. He was angrily shouting at her, and she avoided his eyes the entire time. Yang knew Adam was a dick to people, she just didn’t know that circle of people included family members. She turns back to the boys, “Hey, what do you guys think of Adam?”

Neptune is the first to respond, “Oh he’s horrible.” He gestures at the clothes he’s wearing, “I mean… look at this outfit. Pink… is not my color.”

“It’s not.” Sun agrees.

“It ruins my whole aesthetic.” He scoffs.

“Hey,” Sun gets Yang’s attention, “I wanna be real with you, Yang.” She listens, already regretting it, “Don’t get mad,” she was trying, “Don’t be mad,” he repeats, then continues, “Back in freshman year, I asked Blake out.” This was new information to Yang, this whole time she thought Sun and Blake were strictly platonic. “She was cool, I really liked her. But she rejected me… we never went out.” This made a lot of sense to Yang, but she wanted him to get to the point, “Then, all of a sudden,” he flourishes, “Adam made his move. I didn’t even know Adam liked Blake… Neptune,” he turns to his bud, “did you knew Adam liked Blake?”

“I look like a white boy on Easter Sunday…” He wails, still very upset about his getup.

“Anyway…” Sun continues, “I’ve been worried about Blake ever since. I confronted him about it before, but he said it was all in my head. She said you two were close, though, like,” he makes two Vs with his hands and scissors his fingers.

Yang gently reaches over Sun’s hands and lowers them, “No… you can’t do that.” She coos, speaking to him like a toddler.

“Sorry.” He takes a quick puff and finishes, “I dunno Adam’s deal with Blake. Maybe you could do something about it.” She nods, hitching on the best she could at his ramble.

While Sun comforts Neptune, Yang sees Blake again, with Adam, of course, getting another drink in the kitchen. But this time Blake looks… different--she looks weaker--almost sick. He holds another green plastic cup at her, but she refuses it. Rage is screaming from his body language, Adam grabs her by the wrist and drags her upstairs. She tries to resist but to no avail.

Yang turns back to the boys and lifts them by the collar. Pleading for their vape pens, she takes them back in the house, hoping to find answers. “I need you guys to help me find what the hell is going on.” She anxiously looks around the kitchen. Sun and Neptune just blankly stare at her. Her first instinct is the liter of Pepsi. “Neptune drink this.”

He agrees and downs the rest of the bottle, “It’s Pepsi.”

“What if it wasn’t Pepsi?” Yang yells in frustration. Next up was the refrigerator. She raids it, finding nothing but a half gallon of milk that’s been expired for two months and a pack of fancy cheese. She slams the door, losing hope.

“Yo what’s this powder in these cups?” Sun asks, grabbing Yang and Neptune’s attention. Yang darts her eyes at the plastic green cups, grabbing one, and looking inside. There’s half a teaspoon of white powder in the bottom of the cup.

Yang hitches her breath. Her heart stops. After attending various parties in the past she should’ve known better. “Date rape drug.” She thinks fast, dashing to the fridge. Taking out the milk and cheese, she drops both items on the counter, “Sun, Neptune, cut the cheese into tiny bits.” Was it a good idea for them to handle knives while under the influence? It didn’t matter to Yang.

They both giggle, “You said ‘cut the cheese.’”

She rolls her eyes, opening the milk. Bracing herself and her body for the worst. She chugs the rest of it. The chunks and pungent smell enter her body like death waiting to happen. After that, she turns back to the boys, impressed that they haven’t injured themselves, and grabs a handful of cheese and shoves it right in her mouth.

Only a couple minutes passed since Yang saw Adam drag Blake upstairs.

She had time. She hope she wasn’t too late.

Yang runs into Ilia, who is aggressively turning the doorknob of what appears to be Adam’s room. Yang felt her stomach churn as she heads towards the girl, “Ilia,” the smaller girl turns to her, panicked, “is your shithead cousin in there?” She commands, dying on the inside.

She was in the verge of tears, “I tried to get in there… I tried to stop him, but…” Ilia releases her grip off the handle and presses her ear on the door. Yang does the same. She hears muffled arguing and struggling.

Yang takes her aside and uses her shoulder to barge the door, which only seems to be locked, nothing barricading the door whatsoever. After a couple of tries, Yang manages to get in the room, and everything in her stomach escapes from her mouth. Heaving chunks all over the carpet, she heard a series of swears and insults directed at her.

Yang looks up from the floor to the bed and finds Blake in a state of absolute shock--like a deer in headlights. Everything from her stomach was almost empty when she heard footsteps from the other girl sprinting towards Blake, her dress and makeup were mostly intact.

She made it.

Yang slowly gets up, supporting the weight of herself with her legs, she looks around the room, perplexed, “This isn’t the bathroom.”

Adam balls his fist and he takes a punch at her, but Yang easily deflects it, giving her the upper hand. She uses all her strength and skill from wrestling on Adam, taking him down like nothing. She quickly recovers and follows Ilia supporting Blake down the stairs. Yang gets her other side and informs Ilia how to take care of Blake, “What about you?” She asks concerningly.

“I’ll take care of Adam.”

The music from the party dies down and the crowd stops and they all turn to Adam climbing down the stairs, everyone backs away from him as far as possible, but close enough to see the action. “You.” He struts over to Yang, closing in on her personal bubble. “Get out of my house.”

“Blake, can you hear me?” Ilia asks her, not too far from Yang and the door. She waves a bottled water in her face, encouraging her to drink. That was what Yang told her to do anyway.

“Fine,” Yang sternly answers. “C’mon, Blake, let’s get out of here.” She turns back at Blake, the color in her cheeks coming back.

“No, she stays.” He commands coldly.

Yang faces Adam again, “We’re a package deal. If I leave, she comes with me.”

“That’s not going to happen.” He cracks his knuckles.

“Are you gonna stop me?”

“It’ll be easy.” He charges at her, an expected move. She takes him in a hold, slamming him on the ground. Everyone at the party cheers at her move. “That’s right, she’s a wrestler.” He grunts to himself as he gets up. The two go back and forth for a while with no clear victor. Both parties are playing the sport differently: Yang fights like how she does to win tournaments and Adam is wrestling like the WWE. The clear advantage goes to Yang, she’s been sober all night and isn’t wearing penny loafers, unlike some people; Adam is a bit tipsy from the beer, the nectar of pussies.

 _Kitty gloves are coming off_ , Yang thought. After a quick warm-up, she decides to take him down, finishing him for the rest of the night. Yang throws him from the ground, but miscalculates her strength--he lands back first on top of the glass coffee table, shattering the glass. She swears between her heavy breathing and kneels in front of Blake, who isn’t too far from the damage. She looks tired, but strong enough to get on her feet, which she does. Yang helps her up, Blake quietly thanking her, and she proceeds to walk over Adam, keeping her distance. “We’re done.” Meekly escapes her mouth.

The back of his neck and arms are covered in blood, “What do you mean?” He sounds and looks worse than Blake ten minutes ago.

“Do I really have to spell it out for you, Adam?” She looks him dead in the eye, “I’m breaking up with you.” Her voice comes out shakingly. Sun and Neptune were the first in the group of people to cheer, although some were in shock. He couldn’t even get up to process what just happened, and to be honest, neither could Yang. Blake timidly walks over to Yang, “Can you take me home?”

“Yeah.” She says, just above a whisper.

* * *

Yang parks Bumblebee along the curb. The house in front of them looked identical to all the other homes in the street. The stark difference would have to be the rose bushes planted in the front yard. She lets Blake get off first, a little confused to why they’re at Yang’s house. Maybe the drug Adam poisoned her with hasn’t 100% worn off yet. The Xiao Long-Roses were like a second family to Blake, and a second home, too.

“Come on, let's get you inside,” Yang breaks her thoughts, “Don’t worry, I texted Ruby to keep Zwei in her room.”

“I thought you were going to take me home?” She asks worryingly, honestly a little scared.

Yang looks at her earnestly, she takes off her blazer, which is a little wrinkled from the brawl earlier, and wraps it around her shoulders. She didn’t even notice she was cold, but every other sensation heightens. “My step mom's inside.” Yang acknowledges, directing their gaze at a minivan in the driveway, “She’ll know what to do.”

At this point, Blake had to have a little trust in Yang. It has been a day for her, and she just wants it to get better. They get inside. She remembers the place like a dream. Most of the lights were out, except for the kitchen, and their footsteps echoed on the wood floor. Blake is just behind Yang and she spots a familiar face: Summer Rose, Ruby’s mom, with a cup of tea in her hand and a sincere smile on her face. “Hi Summer.” Blake stays behind.

Before she could even move, Summer engulfs her in a crushing hug. Tears start forming in the corners of her eyes as she hugs the older woman back. “Oh, sweetie,” Summer steps back, looking in her eyes, “It’s okay.” She has always had the softest voice. She guides the dark haired girl over to the breakfast table where Yang is sitting. A tea set is on the table, as well as blank report documents immediately grabbing Blake’s attention. “I remembered you preferred tea, so I brewed up some chamomile.”

Summer was a sweet woman. Too sweet to be a police officer in Blake’s eyes. She was off duty for tonight, but she’s never off duty when it comes to family and friends. Yang texted her step-mom about the party before going, and this woman’s intuition was always on point. It was probably because she was a detective, but Blake didn’t question it. She reported the night’s events to Summer--not only as an authority figure but as a mother figure as well.

Blake was one of the first people to arrive and spotted Sun and Neptune shortly after. Adam had given her only ginger ale for the first hour or so. Eventually, she spotted Yang; she was sporting a brown faux leather blazer over a burnt orange-colored button-on, with half of the top buttons undone, and black leggings. But Blake keeps that detail to herself. Then Adam started giving her Pepsi. Throughout the night, she remembered seeing Cardin Winchester, Cinder Fall, Mercury Black, Emerald Sustrai, Neo Politan, and Ilia Amitola. The boys were on the soccer team, and they were all matching You Know I Have to Do It to Em meme inspired outfits. The details from there were a little hazy, but she remembered being taken into Adam’s room.

******************************************

It was dark, and she couldn’t see anything. All she really heard was the sound of his voice. She tried to fight him, but she was too weak. She could feel her dress being grabbed. Her hair was pooled across her face. He was aggressively kissing her. She felt gross. She never asked for this. She screamed and cried for help, hoping a someone would save her. That someone so happened to be Yang. It always is.

******************************************

Yang backed her up on certain details, matching pretty well with Blake’s. As she was talking to her step-mother, Blake was thinking about how she never left her side since… earlier that night. She really wanted to hang out with Yang at the party--it was one of the reasons why she invited her, but he didn’t allow that. He kept Blake away from Yang for not only that party, but for at least a year. He only let her hang around his friends; thankfully, Sun was one of them, he was a good guy. She never wanted to see him again.

The three of them finished up the report, Summer filing the documents in a folder, taking it to work in the morning. The respective women of the house insisted on Blake spending the night, Summer would even notify her parents if she wished. How could Blake say no to that sort of offer? The red-haired woman bid the two young girls good night, and they headed upstairs.

“Alright,” Yang grunts as she opens the door to her bedroom, “You’ll be sleeping here tonight.” She flicks the desk light on and a cool glow masked the lavender walls of the room. Yang’s room could compete with city pride parades--the walls are covered in rainbow flags, posters of LGBT+ artists, and Percy Jackson books displayed over her desk. Her bed was fairly small, only comfortable enough for a single person, and her designated bed for tonight. Yang opens her dresser and takes out a top and a bottom, “Here are my old clothes,” she hands them to Blake, “You can wear them for tonight.”

She gingerly takes them, “Where will you be sleeping?”

“Ruby’s room.”

“Will she be okay with that?”

Yang clicks her tongue, “She better be.” She swings the door open and waves with her pajama filled hand, “Goodnight!” Yang exits and leaves the door open ajar.

Blake opens the door wider to say, “Goodnight,” just as her friend enters the bathroom across the hall.

\---

Yang slips under the covers of Ruby’s bed, “Move, you butt.” Ruby rolls her body toward the edge of the bed, phone in hand, playing a game on her phone. “Hey,” she makes herself comfortable, “I saw you eating lunch with Weiss Schnee today.” Her sister doesn’t respond, “Why didn’t you sit lunch with me?”

“What?” She whispers like the toddler in the Vine. Ruby charges her phone and drops it on the floor. Yang repeats herself and Ruby responds, “There is only one thing worse than eating alone… Boom.”

“Weiss.”

“No!”

Yang just chuckles. So she’s really doing this, huh. She ties her blonde hair in a ponytail and rests her eyes for what feels like the first time today, “I heard Weiss was cold, mean, and heartless.”

“That is NOT correct.” The younger girl flaps her tongue at the ceiling.

Yang was very surprised by this. Yang knew Weiss was a bitch for months, “You two are very different; are you sure you want Weiss to be your friend?”

“Weiss is legitness.”

She might as well drop it, maybe tomorrow would be different. She’ll be able to have a human conversation with her sister by then, “Sweet dreams, Rubes.”

She yawns, “I didn't get no sleep cause of y'all, y'all not gon get no sleep cause of me.” Ruby quietly sings to herself.

“Make one more Vine reference again, and I’ll delete your tiktok account.” Yang threatens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: The Aftermath


	3. The Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blake and Weiss make some changes in their lives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Approx date of publication: Mar 8, 2019; 1145/11:45pm CST
> 
> Eh not my strongest chapter ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Shoutout to the server! (except for Brook cause she can’t spell T-T)

Sleep.

Blake would think that since arriving at the Xiao Long-Roses last night, with Summer and Yang allowing her to stay the night, that she would finally be able to wake up from her nightmare. That was far from the truth. Right now, Blake’s in this limbo of reality. She just broke up with him, something she wouldn’t have imagined she would’ve been able to do. But she did it. She really did it. But that doesn’t feel real. Her biggest fear is going to school Tuesday morning and living Monday all over again--living the past year over again. That’s the main reason why Blake couldn’t sleep.

These thoughts could be the unsolicited drugs in her system messing up her brain. Like what monster would do that? He would, obviously. She just thought he wouldn’t stoop so low. There were signs. All these signs telling her like a billboard right above her head. The sign of her hectic summer--she didn’t see him for at least two months, and she thought if he physically wasn’t around her that they would eventually fall apart. Out of sight, out of mind. What foolish thinking. That didn’t happen obviously. That’s all he wanted: control.

And then there was her encounter with Yang. Seeing her after all this time was a breath of fresh air. Blake was lucky to have a class with her this year. They’re even in creative writing together for the semester, which felt even better. Their English teacher insisted on an icebreaker to start the school year: two truths and a lie. When it was each of their turns to say three facts, they each knew instantly which one was the lie. Later in the day, Blake saw Yang again, and their conversation continued from that morning--they picked up right where they left off--they were thirteen again.

Still half-asleep, she heard noises outside Yang’s bedroom door. Little corgi feet patter on the wood floor. He even whimpered at the door. A muffled “Zwei… no.” came from a high-pitched voice. More footsteps, the bathroom door swinging in and out again, and then a few moments of silence. She figured it was early in the morning. She lazily shifted out of bed and checked her phone resting on Yang’s desk. She probably placed it there, along with her purse, last night. It was almost seven in the morning.

Blake leaves Yang’s room and gets ready for the day. Except… everything she needs is at her house. Grunting to herself, she quietly goes down stairs, hoping Yang was still there. She was, along with Taiyang, having breakfast on the kitchen counter. Yang’s the first one to notice her, “Good morning, Blake,” she greets between bites, “I like your pajamas.” She adds with a warm smile.

Rolling her eyes and feeling a blush in her cheeks, she grins, “Gee, I wonder why,” she says with a hint of sarcasm. Blake makes her way over to Yang at the breakfast bar, “Thanks,” she adds to Yang while sitting down next to her. She looks over at Taiyang, whose back is turned, “Good morning, Taiyang.”

Tai, wearing a business suit, grabs a lunchbox, and places it on the counter in front of them, “Morning Blake. Did you sleep okay? I know you had a…” he pauses, clearly uncomfortable, “...rough night.” He glances over at Yang, who looks like she’s about to throw her toast at him.

Clearing her throat, she answers him, “It was fine, thank you.” He carries on with his business, and Blake turns to Yang, “Hey, can you drop me off at my house?” She murmurs.

Yang slides off the stool, “Yeah, lemme finish breakfast, and we can go.”

He overhears them, “Blake, are you sure you don’t want to eat breakfast first?”

Blake looks between him and Yang; maybe having something in her stomach would be helpful, “Okay.”

She stays seated while Yang opens the fridge. It’s fully stocked, from top to bottom, of leftovers, beverages, and everything in between. She looks over her shoulder at Blake, “Do you want anything to drink?” She answers yes, and Yang continues, “Milk or juice?”

“What kind of juice do you have?”

“Uhhhh, we have apple, orange, and grape juice.”

Blake smirks at that last option, “Grape juice?”

She shrugs, “What? People like grapes.”

Blake thinks about her options for a minute, “Is the orange juice pulp or no pulp?”

“ _Nada_.” Yang answers, with the possibility of using the wrong translation.

“Orange please.” Yang grabs the carton and pours her friend a glass.

“What a thrilling conversation,” Tai interrupts them.

Yang drops some bread in the toaster, “Don’t you have somewhere else to be?”

Sipping his coffee, he responds, “Maybe. The firm doesn’t need me for a few hours, I have time.”

Blake looks around and notices a couple missing faces, “So where’s Ruby and Summer?” She asks.

Tai is the one to answer her while Yang is doing chores for Zwei, “Summer took Rubes to track and field tryouts, and she had to get to work anyway.” The toaster dings, Yang grabs the toast, and places it in front of Blake, “So I’ve been meaning to ask… how’s your dad doing as mayor?”

She works on her toast and nods, “He’s good. Re-election is coming up again, so that should be interesting…how about you, Tai? How’s law?”

“Same old, same old.” A thought came to him, “Oh, Yang?” Her head pops out from the laundry room, “Your mother is coming later today.” She comes out, audibly sighing, and places the food bowl on the floor. Still eating her food, he tells her, “Here’s a hypothetical question I have for your dad, Blake: I see so much construction whenever I leave my house. Like, I see white and orange everywhere in this city. As mayor, is it possible to stop construction just whenever?”

“You literally complain about construction every day.” Yang points out.

“Because there’s _literally_ always construction.” Blake was beginning to be amused by them.

“Of course there’s always going to be construction. The world is a work in progress, it’s not just gonna magically stop.” She argues.

“That’s not my point. I see construction everywhere in this city, and it’s ridiculous.”

“So what do you want Mayor Belladonna to do about it?”

“I want him to stop construction in the city. I want to be able to go somewhere and not see white and orange detouring the road.” He demands. The two blondes go back and forth, bickering, without a resolution. Yang is in a family of the law, and it shows. His phone rings in the middle of their debate, and he answers it. “Well,” Tai rinses his mug, “I better get going. Tell your folks I said ‘hi!’” She waves him goodbye as he heads out the door.

\---

Blake finishes her breakfast, and her morning show, and she and Yang head out. She borrowed a tote from Yang, and packed all her stuff from the night before: her clothes and her purse. Blake’s eyes meet a brand new sight to her: Yang’s bike, Bumblebee. She vaguely remembers riding on it last night, but this is her first full view of it. The bike is beautiful and matches all the specifications for Yang. She didn’t even know Yang knew how to ride a motorcycle. Probably Summer was the one who taught her.

Finally arriving at her home, still wearing Yang’s pajamas, she turns the key to the front door, letting herself and Yang in. A little bell ringing is heard coming toward them, and a black void appears before their feet, “What up, Gambol Shroud?” Yang asks the cat.

“ _Meow_.”

“Hell yeah!” Yang converses with the feline.

Blake chuckles, and soft footsteps catch her ear, “Oh, dear,” Kali embraces her daughter as if they haven’t seen each other in ages, “I’m so glad your safe.” Blake gladly accepts her hug, familiar to Summer’s. They let go and Kali turns to Yang, “Thank you for letting her stay with you for the night. Please also tell your mother I said thanks.”

“Yes, ma’am. I will.” Blake is slightly taken aback by Yang’s politeness toward her mother. Just a minute ago, she was greeting her housecat, Gammy. She recalled, in the past, Yang frequently being respectful toward adults who are not her parents. That was a trait Blake secretly admires about Yang.

And by the look of Kali right now, she is also flattered. “Good,” she heads back in the kitchen, Blake and Yang following behind, “Did you two already eat breakfast?”

“Yes, ma’am, we ate at my place.” The older woman nods understandably.

“I’m gonna get ready for school.” She turns into a hallway, and Ghira walks in the kitchen from the other side of the house, his nose in the morning paper.

“Good morning, sir.”

His face perks up, “Yang,” he walks behind a counter, “long time, no see.”

As Blake gets ready for school, walking between her bedroom and the bathroom across the hall, she overhears Yang’s conversation with her parents. They catch up--Ghira quite upset he hasn’t seen Yang fight a match since she started high school. As she gets dressed for the day, Kali name drops Summer--who called her last night about Blake. Her parents were worried sick about her--Yang sharing their sympathy.

She finishes getting ready and meets Yang by the door speaking with her dad. Her helmet and keys in her hands, ready to head out, “Aw, are you leaving without me?” She pouts.

Yang gives her an apologetic look, “Yeah… I have to head back home to grab my school stuff.”

“I can take you to school, kitten.” Blake agrees as he opens the door for Yang, “Take care, Yang. Drive safe.”

“Thank you, sir.” Standing on the doormat, she turns back to Blake, “See you in class.” Blake only gives her a secret wink, hoping her dad wouldn’t notice, and Yang becomes extremely weak in the knees--she couldn’t believe a casanova like her swoon so easily.  

On the ride to school, Blake had to break the news that transpired last night, hoping Ghira would take it well, “I see…” was all he said for a while, then he stops at the light, “I never liked that boy anyway,” his voice was growling, “does your mother know?” She shakes her head, and he continues to drive. “I never really liked the boys who’ve been interested in you…” he rambles on, “Like that one boy, Sam?”

“Sun,” she corrects him.

“Sun. I mean, I know he’s your friend now, but when you brought him up as a topic of conversation to me and your mother, it didn’t feel right.” Blake honestly didn’t know where he was going with this, but they were still five minutes away from school, so she didn’t have much of a choice. “You know who I do like? Yang.” _Yang?_ “I liked her back then and I like her now. She’s respectful, charismatic, intelligent, kind…” he went on listing characteristics Blake loves about Yang. That’s always been something she’s been really confused about. Although most of her romantic interests have been mostly men, she wouldn’t mind being with someone like Yang. “...You need a man like that in your life.”

And that’s when he ruins it. _Great_. He follows the line of cars in the carpool, and Blake gets out immediately. Briskly walking in the building, she runs into Ilia, who just got off the bus. She looks relieved, yet cautious. “Blake!” She catches up to her, which was a bit troublesome for her since she is shorter.

She slows down for the sophomore, “Hey Ilia.” They head for their lockers, until something awful catches their eyes: a printed image of an instagram post by Yang from last year. This was the kind of image her future employer wouldn’t want to see. The kind of picture nobody’s children should bear witness to. Instagram would have to delete itself off the app store because of this post. This single grotesque photo made Yang infamous in parties. Everyone thought this side of her was a myth, but it’s displayed right there, duct taped on the front of her locker.

Blake was not having it. She charged right in front of the locker and tore the piece of paper off. A group of students were already crowded around the photo, probably spreading it like crazy. Blake looks at the picture in her hands. Yang deleted it off her account knowing that it would ruin her life, and now, her future is literally in Blake’s hands. She decided to shred it. The piece of paper gets snatched out of her hands before she could do anything else, “Whoa whoa whoa.” It was him. Of course. “This…” he eyeballs the picture, “Is a gift for my dear ‘friend’ Yang.” She assumes Yang hasn’t been in school yet. The chances of her seeing it, hell, even the chances she’d be at her locker, were slim to none. Good thing he doesn’t know that.

“Give it back.” Blake commands.

“What, so you could drool all over it, too?” He circles the photo around, getting a couple of “whoos” from some students, “This is pretty scandalous stuff, it would be a shame if this got out, and I dunno…” In the middle of his monologue, Blake was able to take the picture back, not letting it out of her clutches. Her heels turn, heading to class, Ilia trailing not too far behind. “Wow you’re leaving because I’m right? Typical lesbian.”

\---

Blake sees Yang in the same spot as yesterday morning. Without even saying hello, Blake slides over the crumpled sheet face down to Yang. She slowly places her book down, eyeing the girl and the paper back and forth, “What’s this?” She looks at it for a millisecond, and whispers over at her, “Blake, why do you have this?”

The bell rings, and their teacher starts the lecture, but Blake ignores her, “Adam hung it on your locker,” She says discreetly. Thankfully, the two were seated out of her peripheral sight, so they could have this conversation.

“I don’t even know where my locker is--”

“Yang Xiao Long,” the teacher’s voice claps, Yang’s heartbeat stops, but Blake remains unfazed, “and Blake Belladonna, Principal Ozpin needs to see you.”

* * *

Well, here she is. The principal's office was the last place Weiss would have ever thought she’d be in. On the plus side, she would avoid the likes of some of the men’s soccer team in her class; typical neanderthals--not really Weiss’s type. Especially after this morning with that horrendous chaos effecting her walk to class. Honestly, she had no idea why she was here. Causing drama was the least of her worries, and she didn’t want to be involved, nonetheless associated with people like that. “Good morning,” she speaks to the secretary, “I was sent here by my teacher to come to the principal’s office.” The secretary directs her way to some chairs next to the office door, but before Weiss moves away, she asks, “Did I do something wrong?” A puzzled look followed by a no came from the secretary. Understandably, Weiss makes her way to one of the chairs.

\---

“I’m going to start with some basic questions, and then get right down to protocol. Shall we begin?”

“Yes, please,” she says quite unsure of herself.

“Do you know who Adam Taurus is?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know who Blake Belladonna is?”

“Yes.” She knows too well, in fact.

“Are you aware of a rowdy gathering last night at Adam Taurus’s premises?”

 _Does he mean a party?_ “No.”

“Ruby Rose,” he refers to the other girl in the room, “informed me that you were talking to her on the phone last night. Is that correct?”

Weiss observes more of Ruby. She’s sporting a windbreaker jacket and Nike shorts. She also so happens to be positioned like a pretzel in her chair. “Yes.” The other girl drops her fidget spinner on the floor.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what did you talk about?”

She obliges, “I called her to ask about her day, then she needed help with a homework assignment, so I assisted her, finally, we talked the rest of the evening until my curfew.” That was the gist of it. Weiss tried calling Ruby two times before she answered. They chatted for a bit before Ruby had to return to her homework, sounding unmotivated to do so. Weiss volunteered to help on her assignment, and she gleefully accepted. The subject was geography, which was not Ruby’s strong suit. Weiss found out that she was interested in math and science more, which was a surprise to Weiss, to be perfectly clear. Once they were done, Ruby rambled on for the rest of the night, Weiss trying to keep up, but she enjoyed hearing the sound of the other girl’s voice. Through the phone and in person, Ruby’s voice was like the good kind of holiday candy people gift during celebrations. All of her little filler words Weiss rarely uses adds more to her personality. If Weiss had to be honest with herself, knowing someone like Ruby would have been out of the question in the past, but as she’s learning more about her, there’s this unexplainable attractiveness to her. They shouldn’t work--not at all--but Weiss could see being friends with Ruby for the better.

After jotting what Weiss said, he continues, “So… our protocol for sexual violence,” Weiss hears this and is appalled; Principal Ozpin looks just as guilty explaining all of this to her, “according to the law… is to conduct a full investigation from both parties and establish a consequence at the end. Is that clear?”

Weiss wasn’t sure which side to the story she’s even on, or even if she can abstain, “So the parties involved are Adam Taurus and Blake Belladonna?”

He nods in confirmation, “You and Ruby are character witnesses for Blake. Yang Xiao Long is the key eyewitness.” This all sounds preposterous to Weiss. She has to be a neutral party for Blake, the girl she tortured for a year, and Yang, the girl who avenged Blake. Ruby also happens to be in the equation, taking out a different fidget toy.

“Are you sure I’m the best person for the job?” Weiss pleads.

“Yes. Ruby are Yang are related, which causes a bias. You on the other hand, from previous school records, have a complicated history with Blake Belladonna.” That was putting it mildly, yes. “I have received the official statement account by Detective Rose this morning,” Weiss turns to Ruby who looks proud to herself, that must be Ruby’s mother, “Blake and Yang are waiting outside,” the blinds of the office window are partially covered, the heiress spots the two through the horizontal lines, “Do you mind letting them in?”

At this point, she doesn’t have much of a choice in the matter. Weiss carefully turns the handle on the door, it’s slightly heavier than most, but she was able to manage as another force pushes it forward from the other side; Yang’s violet eyes meet Weiss’s blue as she walks in the room with Blake just behind her. They don’t speak, it’s obvious they want to, but for peace’s sakes, they keep quiet as all girls listen to what Principal Ozpin has to say. He reiterates in full detail how the investigation will be conducted. Weiss wanders in and out from his explanation to observe Ruby. She’s paying attention, but not really at anything Principal Ozpin is saying. He goes on about how Adam’s side of the story has to be accounted for and that he will have the right to “...appeal if the evidence isn’t substantial enough--”

A clank causes Weiss to flinch, stopping Principal Ozpin, “No, sir, that’s not possible,” Yang has flames in her eyes as she rebuttals, she recounts all the evidence from Adam’s history with Blake, statements from teammates about his behavior, the drugs poorly and sloppily handled, and how things got physical later that night. Hearing all of this, Weiss feels more confident in Principal’s Ozpin’s decision to have her defend Blake, but his authoritarian tone says otherwise. He wants to trust and believe Blake, but the truth has to come first, which confirms the need to establish boundaries. While Principal Ozpin is the final word on Adam’s consequence--whether it be detention or expulsion--Weiss and Adam’s character witness become the deciding factor. Ruby looks as puzzled as ever.

His hands are folded on his desk, “Very well then.” He eyes the clock on his monitor, “I have a meeting right now, I’ll be back in thirty minutes,” he gets up and crosses around his desk, “Weiss,” he looks at her, “Please have your decision once I get back. This investigation could take days, weeks, or maybe months.” Halfway out the door, he turns back, “I wish all of you the best of luck.”

The office quickly fills with silence. The one to break it was Ruby, who pulls out her fidget spinner again, “I didn’t catch anything he said.”

She asks her sister, “Do you want me to repeat what he said?” While not looking up from her phone.

Ruby thinks about it, “Yang,” still paying no attention to her sister, “I think I forgot to take my meds.” This piques Weiss’s interest. Sure, Ruby was a bit out of it for the most part, but from what Weiss gathered, she is socially awkward. The white-haired girl could just be over analyzing it, that’s the most likely case.

Yang sighs, dropping her phone in her lap, and looks at Ruby, “It’s in the nurse’s office.”

“Do you mean the clinic?”

“Yeah, whatever. Go!” The girl dashes out there, faster than necessary.

“She might come back and forget where she’s going.” Blake says to Yang.

Continuing to scroll through her phone, “She’ll be fine.”

Weiss and Blake briefly make eye contact, and she pops her head back to the desk--maybe Blake didn’t notice her staring, “Ruby has ADHD.”

“Hey,” Yang’s boots are completely off the floor at this point, “she doesn’t need to know that.” She loudly whispers.

Blake leans in to whisper back at Yang. She acknowledges Weiss’s bewildered look at Ruby and Yang’s exchange, as well as the account that Ruby and Weiss talked last night according to Principal Ozpin. “I think she has the right to know, and Ruby’s totally cool with it,” Blake concludes.

Yang still wears a worried look as her voice shakes a bit, “I don’t want her making fun of my sister.”

Weiss sneers back, “I’m a bitch, not a monster.” Two pairs of eyes look at her. She’s been caught. Yang just sighs in defeat, remembering what her sister told her last night. If Weiss really has changed in the last three years, her relationship with Ruby will show it. She takes a long look at Weiss, making her slightly uncomfortable, which wouldn’t be the first time.But she misreads this, “I bet you're not too thrilled that Ruby and I are getting along?” She asks Yang.

But her next words were unexpected to Weiss, “I heard you were into Pyrrha.”

A furious blush creeps across Weiss’s face, unknowing to her, “H-How did you hear about that?”

There’s a smug look from Yang, “Ilia told me.”

“I didn’t know you and her were acquainted.”

“Lesbian group chat.” Yang shows her the thread of messages from yesterday morning. She sighs back into her seat, “Don’t bother… she’s into that noodle-looking boy.”

“Josh?”

She grimaces, “I think it’s Jaune.”

Blake interjects in disbelief, “Are you that bad with names?”

She scoffs, sticking up her nose in the air, “I don’t pertain for names that have no interest to me.”

“Do you want me to add you to the group chat?” Yang asks her eagerly.

Weiss looks back at the door, “Maybe now is not the best time.”

“Yeah,” the attention of the blonde and the heiress turn to her, “there’s sort of an investigation going on, Weiss is right.” The two nod in agreement. “If you don’t mind me asking,” Weiss is sort of afraid to look at the other girl, “what do you think of all this?”

She responds with her honest opinion. Adam has been notorious for violent protesting against her family’s company. Blake timidly admitted she was at some of them. Weiss let that slide. Mostly because she agrees with their cause, just not through Adam’s methods. She was surprised how well Yang knew the law on sexual violence. She admitted that she sort of had to. Weiss assumed it was because Ruby’s mother was in law enforcement. Yang settled for that, but also, her father is a lawyer, and owns a firm with her mother’s side of the family. The family business Ruby mentioned the other day. The blonde found that amusing, adding that her sister has a vague idea of what they exactly do. But to get back on track, Weiss adds, “From personal experience, Blake, I am on your side. I think it’s brave for you to stand up to your abuser.”

“Thank you,” Blake says with a gentle smile, a slight surprise for Weiss to say, but also, “Wait, what do you mean by ‘personal experience?’”

The Republican-sized elephant in the room is finally addressed. Weiss sighs, reaching inside her bag, “I think it’s best if I show you.” She takes single makeup remover wipe and gentle rubs around her left eye. Once she finishes, she turns to the juniors.

“Whoa, sick scar.” Yang awes surprisingly. Blake nudges Yang’s side with her elbow, “Hey, it’s true.”

Blake didn’t have a similar reaction. Sympathy was written all over her face. She was clearly afraid to ask, “What happened?” But did so anyway.

Weiss tosses the wipe in a small bin in the corner. She returns to her seat, exhausted without even saying a word, “Do you remember who your father ran against in the mayoral election?”

Obviously a rhetorical question, Blake answers anyway, “Jacques Gelé...” clearly unsure herself.

“He’s my father.” Yang and Blake were able to place the corner pieces on their own, a tad confused on the causation, so Weiss further elaborates, “During campaigning, my father would come home every night seeing his low poll numbers. We hated being in the same room as him… just so that he could put his frustration on us. The only way to avoid it was to hide in our rooms, but that didn’t stop him,” her voice was starting to break, a lump forming in the base of her throat, “obviously.” Her breathing becomes unsteady, she continues, “One day I found out his opponent’s daughter, you,” referring to Blake, “went to my school. My friends,” at the time she had friends, “thought it would be hilarious if you suffered the same way I did.” Her voice was icy, sending memories down Blake’s spine, “So I foolishly humiliated you for a while, resulting in a used tampon to the face,” a single cough came from the blonde, “After election night, this happened,” she presents the eye scar to them, “and I’m pretty sure you get the idea from there.” The girl brushes her stands of white hair with her fingertips, and she finishes, looking into Blake’s golden eyes, “I’m truly sorry for what I did to you. I ditched my old friends and settled for none.”

The two older girls didn’t quite know what to say. Blake almost willingly stood up to embrace her, but she couldn’t move. The doorknob turning was the one thing that got all the girls’ focus, a swish sound came from a practically bouncing girl, “I’m back!” She shuts the door close behind her, “What did I miss?” Ruby looks around the tense faces in the room, “Oh my god, what happened? I’ve been gone for like three minutes.”

Shifting in her seat, Yang answers, “We just talked is all.”

“Cool, well, the nurse and secretary said I can go back to class…”

“I’ll go with you,” Weiss gets up, slinging her back over her shoulder.

“Wait,” Blake’s voice halts both girls, “Ozpin’s not back yet, what are you gonna tell him?”

* * *

 Blake and Yang stayed behind during the rest of the first class period. Weiss left a note to the secretary for Principal Ozpin regarding Blake’s credibility in the investigation. She promised it would be substantial information.

It was the end of the day now. Weiss waits outside by the carpool, waiting for Klein to pick her up. “Weiss!” Ruby runs toward her, kind of sloppily, but still, a manageable pace for a speedster like her; barely out of breath, she states, “Hey… I didn’t see you at lunch.”

Her silver eyes were like a puppy, a slight smile comes across Weiss’s face, “I normally eat lunch in the music practice rooms.” She gives Ruby the honest answer, “they were off limits yesterday, so that’s why I was in the cafeteria.”

“Okay. Well, I ate with my sister, which was kind of lame,” she adjusts the straps of her bag, “maybe I can join you tomorrow!” A cheerful glimmer shines in her eye as she says that last bit.

“I’d like that.” Ruby looks around, presumably not going anywhere soon. Weiss is hesitant. For the first time in a long time she is unsure what so say to the girl. She notices her twiddling her thumbs, probably thinking the same thing, “Blake told me you have ADHD.” She mentally shut her mouth, but it was already out there, maybe she didn’t hear her.

“Huh?” Weiss lets out a sigh of relief, “Oh, yeah I have ADHD,” her breath instantly shot back in her lungs.

Afraid to look Ruby in the eyes, she asks, “You don’t mind that I know?”

She shakes her head, looking at the older girl’s eyes, “It’s okay if Blake told you,” she bites her lip, “Although… I would’ve prefer it coming from me,” she drags ‘me’ just a little, “I, uh, wasn’t exactly in the right headspace. Sorry about that.” She adds, clearly a little embarrassed. Weiss wanted to comfort the girl, but she continues, “This morning I forgot to take my meds; thankfully, it’s only been a couple hours.” She chuckles to herself, “I don’t think I’ll last the whole day…”

“Ruby.” Weiss stops her rambling. She takes Ruby’s hands in her’s, “It’s okay.” Her hands are warm compared to Weiss’s. The other girl’s face is dumbfounded. It could be due to the shock of Weiss’s touch.

“Your hands are cold.”

“Your’s are warm.”

“They are?” She stupidly feels her own hand.

Weiss spots Klein at the end of the carpool, “Are you waiting for your ride?” She asks Ruby.

“Uhhh,” she pops her knuckles, “My sister’s at a wrestling meet, I’m just waiting for her.”

She checks the time on her phone, just fifteen minutes past the end of school, and says to Ruby, “If you’re okay with it, I can give you a ride… to your place.”

Without even thinking Ruby takes out her phone, “Yeah I’ll just let my family know.” Unlocking her phone, she exclaims, “Oh my phone’s at five percent, shoot!” She quickly types a message, shuts off her phone, and turns to Wiess, “Kay kay, I’m gucci.” Flapping her arms back and forth like a top, she follows Weiss into her vehicle. She gets in first and is amazed by the interior, “Wow, leather and everything.”

Taking Ruby off her trance, Weiss says, “Ruby, this is my butler, Klein.”

“Whoa, just like Batman,” she whispers to herself, amazed as ever.

“Good afternoon Miss Ruby,” he tips his hat.

She gasps, “Oh my god he knows my name.”

Weiss squints her eyes at the girl, “I just… said your name.” Ruby gives her address to Klein as he proceeds to drive off. Weiss lends Ruby a charger to plug in during their ride. They chat in the backseat--Weiss inquiring her about the track tryouts more in depth, Ruby asks Weiss about her singing and if she can find any of her songs online, and they finally reach the front of Ruby’s house. Just as Ruby climbs out of the seat, Weiss contemplates whether or not she should go down with her to properly say goodbye. The girl is already awkward enough, adding on to that pressure might seem a tad bit much. Before she could even do anything, Ruby, with the help of Klein, grabs her bag from the trunk, and thanks the two for the ride. He leaves the side of the curb once Ruby enters through the front door.

 _Maybe another time_ , Weiss thinks to herself, smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Halloween Birthday


	4. Halloween Birthday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s Ruby’s birthday bby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Approx date of publication: Mar 13, 2019; 1745/05:45pm CDT
> 
> Happy (belated) birthday to my child Rai, this one’s for you !

Yang settles down on the lunch table next to Pyrrha and Jaune. “Are you going to take a seat?” Pyrrha asks naively.

She takes a bite of a french fry and looks at her, “Me? A gay on a chair? Nah.” From a distance, Yang sees Ruby and Weiss enter the cafeteria from the courtyard, “Uh oh, nerd alert.”

Jaune and Pyrrha whip their heads to follow the blonde’s gaze, “That’s your sister,” he mansplains.

“I’m talking about Weiss.”

“Oh, are they joining us this time?” Nora asks, taking the seat next to Jaune, and Ren grabs the seat next to her. While Yang regularly eats lunch with Pyrrha and her friends, she seldom joins Weiss and Ruby in the practice rooms. It’s quiet, private, and sometimes, she’s just so tired of the straights.

Ruby has a bounce in her step, headphones on her head, probably listening to music. On the other hand, Weiss struts alongside her, tall as ever, scanning the cafeteria. Yang waves her hand up to help her out. Seeing her bright blonde hair in the crowd, Weiss tugs at Ruby’s sleeve, and they make their way over at Yang. Slipping off her headphones, she bubbly greets her friends at the table and presents invitations to them, “My birthday’s coming up, and you’re all invited!” She Fortnite dances across from them as they read the card. Weiss sees this and she facepalms in embarrassment. “We’re gonna trick-or-treat followed by a sleepover… yeah.” Ruby says between movements.

“No boys allowed?” Jaune asks, “So… it’s just me?” He refers to the sleepover portion.

“Sorry Jaune, Dad’s rules.” She Fortnite dances sadly.

Ren speaks up shortly, “Does that include me?” They ask.

Still Fortnite dancing, she wiggles her eyebrows, “Oh, well,” Ruby didn’t think this thoroughly enough, “If you’re up for it… I guess.”

Pyrrha slides her invitation down, “I’m afraid I can’t stay for the sleepover, Ruby…” She looks over at Yang, “We have a wrestling tournament the next morning.”

“We’re with Pyrrha,” they add, referring to them and Nora, “Cheer has to practice for the homecoming game…”

“...which means an early start Saturday morning.” She finishes, “Sorry.” Nora apologizes with sad eyes.

Stopping her Fortnite dancing, Ruby sighs, “Nah, it’s okay… you guys still up for trick-or-treating?”

“Totally!” He speaks for the rest of his friends, all agreeing, “Can I bring my nephew though? My sister wants me to watch him that night…so it’s like, two birds, one stone.”

“You’re gonna throw a stone at a baby?”

“That’s not remotely what I said!” His voice cracks, squawking at Nora.

A light bulb pops in Pyrrha’s head, “Jaune, how do you feel about matching costumes for Halloween?” A blush creeps across her face as she asks him.

Furrowing his brows, he asks, “Why? I already have my costume planned…” he goes on about his costume idea with Pyrrha, leaving everyone at the table internally screaming.

Burying her face with her hands, Yang sighs, “Oh my god they’re hopeless.”

Weiss clicks her tongue, “Tell me about it.”

With a smug look on her face, Yang asks the girl, “So, will you be at Ruby’s party?”

“Of course,” she answers with no hesitation, “although,” she says concernedly, “I’ve never been to a sleepover before… nor do I have a costume prepared. Right now I’m playing it by ear--why are you staring at me like that?”

The older girl’s expression is very suggestive, an uncanny resemblance to the Lenny face, “That’s quite impulsive of you, Weiss. I think my sister’s rubbing off of you--name of your sex tape.”

Weiss’s face is almost completely red, from both humiliation and anger, and she refutes Yang, stammering, “Can’t a girl try new things?” She composes herself.

Yang rests her lips on her drink, “Uh huh, you keep telling yourself that,” she takes a sip, but realizes what it is, “oh shit, this is milk! Ruby, take this!” The girl runs over to her sister and happily takes her drink. Weiss thinking to herself, _karma’s a bitch_ , as she and Ruby make their way to the practice room. Not getting too far, Yang yells at them, “Don’t forget to tell Blake!”

“I won’t!” Ruby yells back.

* * *

Halloween night rolls around. The doorbell rings and Zwei beats the birthday girl to it. She answers it and sees Weiss in the most casual clothes she has ever seen her in. “Hi!” Ruby greets, but Weiss’s attention is on something else.

“Awwww, puppy!” She baby talks the corgi. Ruby shuts the door behind her and joins Weiss on the floor. “What’s his name?”

Ruby doesn’t answer right away. She’s mostly admiring her friend interacting with her pup in the most unlikely way, “his name is Zwei.”

Weiss continues to call the dog a good boy as footsteps approach them. “Well, hello,” the voice greets, “who do we have here?” Ruby shoots up in shock.

Weiss composes herself, sadly away from the dog, and shakes the woman’s hand, “Good evening, you must be Ruby’s mom, I’m Weiss.”

Summer, in uniform, is ready for a long night ahead of her. She shakes the young girl’s hand, “Oh, I know. Ruby has told me all about you,” she looks between Ruby, awkwardly standing next to them, and Weiss, who is stiff compared to how hunched she was in front of Zwei. “Summer, nice to meet you,” she lets go before walking to the base of the staircase, “Yang! Your friend is here, and I’m leaving for work!” A door from above swings and Summer walks back to the girls, “I’m terribly sorry to leave so soon, Weiss, but I have work tonight.” She makes her way out the door, “you two have fun!”

“We will!” Weiss and Ruby say in unison.

“Why isn’t your mother joining us for the celebration?” It was Ruby’s birthday, after all, she found it a tad peculiar that someone like Summer, according to Ruby and Yang, would miss out on her daughter’s birthday.

Shrugging, Ruby says, “oh, she and her co-workers have a Halloween tradition thing. It’s fine.”

Descending from upstairs, Yang grabs the two’s attention away from the door, “Yo, check it out.”

Weiss and Ruby turn with opposite reactions. Ruby squeals in delight while Weiss asks, “what are you supposed to be, exactly?”

“The gay agenda.” She poses, flexing her arms, dressed as Adora from _She-Ra and the Princesses of Power_. Ruby really wanted her sister to be the titular character, but Yang argued that it would be hella cold, and Adora already wears a jacket, so it would be perfect.

Fangirling, Ruby gets a closer look at her, “it looks so good!” She gasps, “does that mean--”

The doorbell rings right on cue. Ruby and Yang are frozen in place. Exacerbated, Weiss gets the door, and Blake, cosplaying as Catra, appears before them.

Ruby is speechless, “Shut up!”

“Yaasss, you look so dope!” Yang praises at the same time. Blake giggles in amusement, setting her stuff next to Weiss’s. “Ruby, take pics of us.” The birthday girl closes the door and grabs Yang’s phone, having an impromptu photo shoot in the study.

After said photo shoot, Ruby escorts Weiss upstairs to her room, “we also have matching costumes… I hope you don’t mind.”

Ascending up the stairs, sighing, “I don’t mind at all. Frankly, I’m really not too invested in Halloween in the first place.”

She reaches her bedroom first, “Well, I’m here to change that,” Ruby cackles. She lets Weiss in the room first, “ta-da!” Weiss takes a look at Ruby’s room. The part of the walls that are not covered in anime posters is colored light blue. Every disorganized mess, whether it be clothes or papers, piled up seems to have some sort of place. Ruby’s closet is wide open and articles of clothing Weiss has seen the girl wear is displayed right in front of her. Then, there’s the bed; the bedsheets horribly clash with the wall, however, it’s what’s on top of the bed that catches her eye: two seemingly identical costumes, excluding the belt around the waist, and two witch hats. “This one is yours,” Ruby refers to the costume with a blue belt, “and this is mine,” she holds up one with a red belt.

“Witches?”

“Not just any witches! This is from my favorite anime!” Ruby takes Weiss’s witch hat, and places it on top of her head, “Perfect fit!” Ruby worked on these costumes since Weiss told her that she didn’t have anything to wear on Halloween. The girl insisted, a determination in those silver eyes, and Weiss couldn’t resist. Weiss never knew how gung ho her friend could be when she wanted. Planning things out and organization was sort of out of her realm--Ruby’s impulsiveness has always been the better of her.

Seeing how well the hat fit, Weiss was curious, “How did you--?”

“Blake,” she rocks on the balls of her feet. Ruby elaborates, “when she was doing your measurements for the musical, I asked her what they were, and she told me.” She explained sheepishly.

Weiss softly smiled at her, “well, I love it.” She takes her costume and sizes it up, “it’s classic Halloween with a bit of ‘you’ embedded into it.”

She squeaks, “That’s what I was going for!”

\---

Pyrrha is the last of them to arrive. “I have to get my makeup on,” she says, heading for the bathroom, “don’t wait up!” Most of them eagerly don’t wait--especially Ruby, Nora, and Jaune’s nephew, Adrian. Yang and Blake stay behind. Yang knows the best Halloween candy route by heart after trick-or-treating in the neighborhood for years.

She trickles in the bathroom, Pyrrha jamming to some hip-hop, and joins her in front of the mirror, “Hey,” she redoes her hair, “so…” Pyrrha looks at a reference photo, “...you and Jaune huh?” Yang nonchalantly asks, referring to their interaction earlier that week.

The red-haired girl drops what she’s doing and glares at Yang, a mix of anger and confusion, but mostly anger, “what about Jaune?”

A jam plays in the background, “why?” Yang simply asks.

Pyrrha lowers the volume on her phone and gets back to her makeup, “He’s nice, funny, sweet…”

“That sounds like a security deposit.”

She just rolls her eyes at her, “do you really want to know the real reason?”

Adjusting her jacket, Yang scoffs, “yeah!” Yang has known Pyrrha a long time--since freshman year. Star student, star athlete, and overall badass. Jaune, to be honest, was the relative opposite. Sure, he has potential, but there’s only so much a guy like him can accomplish. So, Pyrrha tells her. He was the only person in the room to treat Pyrrha like a human being. With everybody else, she was a god and practically untouchable--but… with him, she was back on Earth. He was her heaven. And he really means a lot to her. “Well shit,” was all Yang could muster up, “I feel like a jackass.”

Pyrrha chuckles, making some final touches, “it’s okay.”

“Sorry,” Yang mutters.

“So, how about you and Blake?”

“Whaaaat? No--we’re just--we’re just friends.” She half lied.

“Yang, friends don’t give each other bedroom eyes.”

“You’re just seeing things.”

“You two coordinated matching costumes for tonight.”

“So did you and Jaune,” Yang argues, purposefully excluding Ren and Nora. They all dressed up as zombies tonight.

“Don’t divert the subject.”

“We--” Yang licks her lips, “it’s complicated.”

“She talks about you all the time in trig,” Pyrrha makes sure the other girl isn’t listening in; she’s not, she’s on her phone in the den, “and I wish I was exaggerating.”

Yang didn’t even know Pyrrha and Blake were in the same trig class. “Really?” Her voice going an octave high. Pyrrha suggestively nods. “Huh.” Yang’s thoughts were bouncing in her head. Venting all this out was probably good for her. Especially venting about Blake. She couldn’t really do that with… y’know, Blake. Plus, they have time, the others probably hit one or two houses by now. Yang takes a deep breath, filling her lungs with as much air as possible, and lets it all out as she talks, “I am so gay…”

“You’re going to break the closet if you keep coming out like this.”

She raises a finger up, “Sush.” Pyrrha shuts up her lips, “as you may know, she was in a relationship with a guy.” Yang gulps, “he was a horrible person, and that relationship ended badly,” she rubs the base of her head, “I don’t wanna break her heart like that. Ever. I’ve seen her…” Yang remembers Blake being tormented in the past, “...in such a bad place. She deserves more than that, y’know?” Pyrrha nods in agreement, Yang’s mouth becomes dry, “If I see her suffer, and it’s because of me, I don’t think I’ll be able to live with that.” She says that last part quietly, but Pyrrha, and her ghost, is able to hear it. Yang concludes, “So the best way to avoid the inevitable… is to postpone it.” Throughout her vent, her eyes haven’t met Pyrrha’s, until this moment, “if we don’t date, if we don’t become more than friends, if we chill at least five feet apart in the hot tub… then that’s one more second I see Blake happy. And I would rather have that than to have her heart broken one more time.”

Pyrrha has known Yang to say the dumbest shit imaginable. But what she just preached, in the half bathroom of her house on Halloween night, made Pyrrha realize this girl had more than one brain cell after all. “Wow,” she thought she was speechless, “would you like to hear my nice response or my not-so-nice response?”

Yang is curious, “What’s your ‘not-so-nice response?’”

“You need to bone,” Pyrrha says to her bluntly. Yang gently shoves her, “seriously though, this is all anxiety talking. Blake has been ten times happier in the past two months alone than she has in the last year. And it’s all because of you,” she reassures her friend, “don’t worry too much.”

The blonde pouts, thinking about Pyrrha’s words, “Do you think it would be too much if I ask her out to homecoming?”

Her friend nearly falls standing still from excitement, “Do it! She’ll love it! How are you going to ask her out?” Yang tells her the rough idea she had in her head, “Awww, that’s so sweet! Literally and metaphorically.”

Yang exits the bathroom first, “I know we are.”

“Who is?” The two completely forgot about Blake, still in the house, waiting for the slowpokes to get ready.

They hide their panic, Pyrrha failing completely, “Pyrrha and I,” Yang saves, “we’re gonna kick ass in the tournament tomorrow!” The red-haired girl just chuckles uncomfortably.

Not seeing past the lie, Blake believes them, “Okay weirdos. Let’s get trick-or-treating.”

* * *

 “That was _so_ much fun!”

“Yeah, I haven’t gone trick-or-treating in ages.”

“We sparingly do, but our luck in the past has been kind of terrible.”

“Glad this time around is better for you guys,” Pyrrha checks over her shoulder for the rest of the girls, “aw, look at that.” The other three’s attention turns to what their friend is seeing: a horde of kids flock around Yang and Blake, Ruby and Weiss watch not too far, talking to the family members of the children.

Adrian is carried by Jaune as he laughs at them in awe through the window, “I’m so tired, buddy,” he wails, “besides, you’ll see them soon enough,” he encourages the baby. The child, although very sad, nods in agreement. Pyrrha watches this sight in secret, with a warm smile across her face.

The front door swings open again, “I can’t fathom the audacity you have to go that length in your costumes.”

“I give the people what they want. The people want a show--hence, the people want me.”

“Yeah, that makes sense.”

“Candy me!” Ruby dives on the floor, back first, and makes snow angel motions. Yang dumps her bag of Halloween candy, and Blake follows along. The birthday girl giggling immensely with glee, “more you cowards!” Everyone else, except for Adrian, do as they’re told. Weiss was hesitant at first, but seeing how this is inherently what Ruby wanted, she goes ahead, sprinkling the candy instead of dropping all of it on her. The girl’s body is almost no more, buried beneath all the sweets, as the candy pieces stop. A couple of moments go by. Weiss looks the most concerned out of everyone, even Yang, who just stare at the pile. The baby crawls over to the base of the candy, where Ruby’s feet are, and grabs a tiny handful of it. “Rawr!” She pops out, giving Adrian a giggle fit, and she swoops him up to give him a piggyback ride.

She sprints across the house, leading upstairs, “you better make sure that baby has life insurance, Jaune.” Yang warns.

“Ruby,” his eyes bulge out of his head, “please return my nephew…” a worried tone in his voice fill his throat.

The host of the house takes the cake out of the fridge, “you guys want some cake before you go?” All agreeing, they gather around the kitchen, Yang takes out a knife and reveals her sister’s cake. It’s a cookie cake--decorated in black, orange, and red flower frosting around the circumference; ‘Happy Birthday Ruby’ is sprawled in the middle, and Yang pulls out a one and a five numbered birthday candles to go on top. “Ruby, run in here, come get y’all cake!” She turns to Blake, “do you mind taking a vid for insta?”

“I don’t mind,” she takes Yang’s phone off her hands.

Turning to Weiss, she asks, “would you do the honors of singing?”

The girl proudly smirks, “I’ll be happy to!” Ruby hands back Adrian to his uncle, and she goes over between Weiss and Yang. The older girl begins lighting the candles as the lights dim, “Happy birthday to you--” Weiss sings, everyone following pursuit. Ruby thinks, to herself, that today has been the best birthday ever. In the past couple of years, it has usually been her and Yang--sometimes her dad, but that’s beside the point--and they’d go trick-or-treating and then a scary movie. But this time… she has friends. She considers Jaune to be her closest friend; they’re in the same geometry class, and oftentimes, she would help him out on problems--related to math, obviously. Pyrrha is like a second sister to Ruby; they’ve known each other for a few years, and their friendship is reminiscent of how she is around Yang. Ren and Nora are cool; Ruby learned what non-binary is from them, and how they don’t really conform to gender; Nora was the only other person in the room who is able to keep up with her energy--finally. Blake, oddly enough, was always someone Ruby could open up to; she found out about Ruby’s ADHD a few years after her diagnosis, so she heavily leaned on Blake for helping her read long, tedious books--that’s a word she’s been trying to use more frequently--damn, she’s getting better.

And then, there’s Weiss. She remembered her first impression of the heiress, and man, it was not good. That part eventually slipped out from the girl herself, but Weiss took it well. Her friend found out about Ruby’s ADHD sort of by accident, but everything turned out okay. Not too long ago, Ruby had to read Shakespeare for English class, which was really dumb, like, this guy isn’t speaking English, there was no way, it was a whole completely different language, and that really frustrated Ruby. She ended up calling her, and Weiss picked up the phone after the first ring and a half. She talked it out, and Weiss gave her pretty strong advice: “it’s better to hear Shakespeare rather than read it.” Ruby understood what she meant really well, and they went back and forth reading the play out loud. She loves hearing the other girl’s voice. Y’know those ASMR videos of people whispering a pubic hair length away from the microphone? That’s Weiss’s voice to Ruby; her voice gives a tingle in Ruby’s ear, and that relaxes her. Ruby also loves how she says an Internet reference and Weiss doesn’t get it; she doesn’t understand them, yet, somehow, she makes her smile and laugh. On the outside, she’s humiliated, of course, but Ruby knows that she’s grinning on the inside, and she loves it. Whenever they see each other during lunch, at the beginning of it, Weiss always seemed stressed--whether it be an exam or a paper or a singing thing--however, by the end of their lunch period, her heart would grow ten times bigger; Ruby, intentionally or not, would bring her joy. She just loves seeing this side of Weiss that not a lot of people get to see. In a way, that made their relationship really special.

Blowing out the candles, Yang asks, “so whad’ya wish for?”

“I can’t tell you,” Ruby sneers, “or it won’t come true.”

“Fair enough.” Everyone gets a piece of cake, eating it like a pizza. Yang goes ahead and cleans up the mess of candy from earlier.

“Need some help with that?” A soft voice asks her. It’s Blake, and she finishes the last bite of her cookie cake.

Biting her lip, Yang thinks about what Pyrrha told her a couple of hours ago, “nah, I’ll just bring this up to Ruby’s room.” She eyes her up and down, “you can go change to your sleep clothes if you want.” Nervousness filters in the air of her voice.

Blake notices this, “Hey, are you okay?”

Yang’s caught red-handed, but manages to fake a smile, “I’m fine.” Should she say it? “I’m glad you’re here.” Welp, it’s out there.

* * *

The girls get out of their Halloween costumes and into their pajamas. They gather in front of the TV in the den--Blake and Yang on the couch, Weiss and Ruby on the floor, and Zwei cuddled up against the heiress. “So, what are we watching?”

Ruby gives Weiss and Blake a sly grin, “ _Happy Death Day_.”

“Isn’t that a little ironic?” Blake peers from her phone, “and inappropriate?”

“There’s just infidelity, it’s fine,” Yang reassures her, having seen the movie when it released.

“I meant the murder.”

“Like murder’s not a big problem in this country already.” Yang satirically says, getting popcorn to the face.

While those two argue on the couch, Weiss turns to Ruby, “Hey, Ruby,” she gets the girl’s attention.

“What’s up?” Ruby selects the movie on Hulu.

“About your birthday present…” she has trouble phrasing this, “it’s not… quite ready yet.”

The movie starts playing, Yang sushing the girls up front, “Oh,” Ruby whispers, “it’s fine, I’ll open my presents when you’re ready.” Weiss sees her smile in front of the television glow.

\---

 _Happy Death Day_ finishes up. Ruby jumps up from the floor, “Okay! Dinner time! I’m starving!” The rest of them follow her lead. “Yang, what’s for dinner?” Ruby boots up the sound speaker, and plays some music from her phone.

“‘Za.” Yang simply answers. She opens the oven, and a home-baked pizza cools inside; Summer made that earlier in the day. Half extra cheese, half no cheese. The no cheese side has pepperoni and jalapenos while the extra cheese side has no toppings whatsoever. “Hm, looks like it could use a little more heat,” Yang turns around to face her friends, “unless you all want room temperature pizza.”

“Ew, gross.” Ruby speaks for the others’ behalf, “fine, we’ll wait.” She drops her head on the counter. Yang starts up the oven again.

“How are you still hungry anyway?” Blake asks the girl, “didn’t you just have, like, a bowl of popcorn?”

“Ummmmmmm, I dunno.”

Weiss proposes a theory, “it might have to do with your ADHD medication.”

“Awwww, you nerd,” Yang pinches her cheek, “you did your research on attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.” Weiss slaps the blonde’s hand away.

“Knowing more about a subject reduces ignorance… especially if that subject involves my friends.” She states matter-of-factly.

The doorbell rings. “Who dat?” Yang asks, looking at the direction of the front door. She was pretty sure Ruby didn’t invite anyone else, and especially not around this time.

“I’ll get it!” Ruby rushes for the door, ignoring all the events in _Happy Death Day_.

Weiss is behind her trail, “I believe that’s my present.” The girl opens the door and Klein stands there, Tupperware in hand, presenting it to the girls, “Thank you, Klein.”

He bows, “my pleasure,” turns to Ruby, “and happy birthday, Miss Rose.” The older man greets her with a gruff. Ruby squeaks out a shy thank you and waves as he heads back to the car.

She shuts the door, and sees Weiss carrying her supposed ‘gift.’

“Happy birthday, Ruby!” The birthday girl peers inside the container and sees a dozen cookies with cinnamon sugar crystals on top. Ruby gingerly takes the container off Weiss’s hands, slightly grazing her fingertips in the process. “These are snickerdoodle cookies passed down from my family; my grandfather was the last one to have the recipe. And now, technically, I have it,” she laughs to herself. “I also made sure everything was organic and no dairy because of Yang. And, sadly, I have no knowledge of baking, so Klein had to do most of the heavy lifting.” Weiss nervously plays with the strands of her hair, “I know your preference is typically chocolate chip, but I guarantee you will absolutely--”

She’s cut off by a soft pressure on her lips. Ruby tenderly kisses Weiss, her hand barely caressing the top of her shoulder. The other girl’s lips taste sweet, like the kettle corn she had earlier. This was nice. Unexpected… but nice. Before she has the chance to return the kiss, the girl quickly pulls away, “I’m sorry, I dunno why I did that!” She hugs the container over her chest, pacing around the room, “I know you have a thing with Pyrrha…” _Did everyone know about that?_ To be honest, Weiss hasn’t thought about the older girl in almost two months, “...and, gosh, we see each other after school two days a week for the musical, not to mention the Saturday rehearsals, and shoot, there’s also the upcoming dress rehearsals…” The girl is frantically going back and forth, the other girls in the kitchen not hearing this, probably from the pop-rock music playing, rambling about who knows what at this point. Weiss stops this. She walks over to Ruby and pecks her cheek. She stops, “what was that for?” Ruby asks, kind of guiltily.

Weiss smirks, “to stop you from talking your mouth off.”

“Oh.” Ruby still has hold of the cookies, still as a statue in a state of shock.

Weiss snaps her fingers in front of her, “Ruby?”

A few seconds go by and she’s back in front of Weiss, “sorry, I was just thinking.” She sits on the floor, against the coffee table, and she takes out a cookie, eating it. Weiss immediately joins her on the floor. “So what now?” She questions, a glint of innocence in her silver eyes.

The other girl discreetly bites her lip, shrugging her shoulders, “I honestly don’t know.”

“Did you like it?”

She nervously plays with her hair again, “it was quite brash at first. The taste from the popcorn still lingers, but that could be easily fixed with mint. And you--”

“Are you constructively criticizing my kissing?”

\---

“Weiss,” Yang slams her drink on the table, “I’m no longer allowing you to be Ruby’s friend.”

“Why?” She holds up a knife pointed at Yang, “is it because I’m eating my pizza with a fork?” She rhetorically asks with a tease in her voice.

“Oh, she’s taunting you now,” Blake giggles between bites.

Weiss retorts back, “you have one half of the pizza with an ungodly amount of spice and the other with an unholy amount of cheese,” she splits the cheese in half to settle it on the bare slice, “you’ve left me with no choice.”

“I like spice.” She pours red pepper flakes on top of her two slices. The other two girls observe, lowkey in disgust. Yang secretly enjoys Weiss’s company. Other than Ruby, she’s fun to tick off once and awhile; she actually puts up a fight while her sister just whines.

High-pitched grunts and a thud of wrapped gifts divert the girls’ attention; Ruby’s in the den with all her birthday presents. “So--”

“You only get to say it… once.” Yang warns.

Ruby’s brows furrow in anger, “Fine. So you just gonna bring me a birthday gift on my birthday to my birthday party on my birthday with a birthday gift?”

They all watch as the birthday girl unwraps her presents. It’s pretty late in the night; the likelihood that it’s still October is behind them. “That one’s mine,” Blake refers to an unlabeled box.

She takes the cover off, revealing “a sweater with puppies on it!” Ruby shows the article of clothing to her friends. Various breeds of dogs make up the pattern of the design. “I love it, Blake, thank you!” They both hug as Yang takes it aside. This goes on like this for the rest of the gifts: Pyrrha gave her a phone case, Ren and Nora both gave her slime, and Jaune opted for a gift card. “Yang where’s your gift?”

Yang uses her hand to prop her head up as she lays on the floor, “my gift to you is organizing a bitchin’ party.”

Ruby squints her eyes at her sister, “hmm,” she turns to the TV, “lame. Let’s watch another movie!”

The three of them collapse on the floor, groaning, “oh my god, I think I’m pooped out, how does your sister keep going?” Blake asks on behalf of Weiss.

Yang jolts up, “have you met my sister? If you think she could run out of energy, you’re blind.”

“Well,” Weiss speaks up, “I’ll stay.” She scoots over to the girl, “Ruby, what are we watching?”

She answers, eyes not straying away from the monitor, “ _Blood Fest_.”

* * *

 Yang heads to the kitchen, away from the television. She grabs a glass from the drying rack and pours herself some lemonade from the refrigerator. Closing the door, she pivots around and sees Blake on top of the counter next to the sink, startling Yang, “Jesus Christ,” a mischievous chuckle comes from the other girl, “don’t scare me like that.” Yang takes a sip of her drink, not looking away from her.  

“Sorry,” her laughter dying down, “I was thirsty…” she scans the counter as well as inside the fridge.

The blonde leans on the open door, “See something you like?” Having a firm grip on her glass.

Blake shuts the fridge, hiding her blush in the dark, “you’re a dork.” She makes her way out of the kitchen.

Yang puts her glass down, “hey, I’m just tryna be a good host,” she innocently defends herself.

The dark-haired girl turns back to the kitchen, not going past the arch, “All right, good host,” Blake tries to size-up Yang, but fails miserably by a few inches, “would you happen to have something alcoholic?” She asks with a grin in her voice.

This surprises Yang, it really does. But her hospitality comes first, “tsk, the parentals keep it in a cabinet under lock and key.” Yang shows her the stash of liquor in the formal dining room. Almost all the bottles inside are untouched and ready to consume. “Too bad I don’t have the key.” Yang sighs, disappointed.

“I know how to pick a lock.”

“You do?” Yang is shooketh, “how? Since when?”

She already has a bobby pin in hand, “If I tell you, you’re gonna tell Summer.”

“No I won’t.”

\---

The two reach Yang’s bedroom door as she checks her phone, eyebrows furrowed, “did you just ask me to homecoming through bitmoji?” Yang asks a smirking Blake.

Hugging the two bottles against her chest, she sways her head, “Maybe…” Blake wants to tell her that she sent that bitmoji on a whim. In the middle of watching _Happy Death Day_ , Yang ate her share of popcorn without the use of her hands. She just lifted the bowl up with her knees and leaned her head forward, scooping up the pieces with her tongue. Something about that told Blake to ask her to the dance. She knew it was an unconventional way to do so, but maybe Yang wouldn’t see it, and it wouldn’t be a big deal.

Yang still has her phone in her hand and she turns the knob, “well, you sorta beat me to it.” Confused, Blake peers inside Yang’s room, seeing Halloween candy sprawled on the floor spelling out ‘Homecoming?’

Blake sets the bottles down and gasps at the display. She covers her mouth and sees Yang recording her reaction to the proposal, “Yang!” She’s elated and pissed at the same time.

Still recording, Yang hysterically laughs, “so, what’s your answer?”

Trying to hold back the biggest smile in the world, yet failing so hard, Blake walks over to Yang, “Yes!” She embraces her like they’re destined to. Yang stops the recording and returns her hug. This is probably the best way Blake could’ve ever been proposed. It wasn’t too flashy and public, plus, it was done by the person she loves.

A few moments pass and Yang swoops up the liquor bottles, “Perfect, let’s celebrate.”

\---

A bottle and a half of Irish cream later. The two juniors are collapsed on Yang’s bed, staring at the ceiling, which so happens to have a poster of Hayley Kiyoko directly above her Casper mattress. Soft country music plays on Yang’s phone. “If I move I might fall over.” Blake lazily moves her drink from her stomach on the floor. “Yeah,” she grunts, “I was right.” They don’t know whether they’re drunk or tipsy. Both of them are too happy to care.

“My parents are gonna kill me.” She chuckles between breaths.

“No they won’t,” she reassures Yang.

“Y’know my step-mom’s a cop, right?” She rhetorically asks Blake.

Blake tries to look at Yang’s eyes, “Your parents are cool,” she slurs her words, “unlike mine.” Yang turns her head away from Lesbian Jesus and looks at her. She wants to say the typical condolences a random would say. But this is Blake she’s talking about. She deserves more than that. “Ya know… I haven’t even told them I’m bi…” Blake starts to choke up.

“How come?” Yang stupidly asks.

“I dunno.” She sniffles, “I don’t want them to be disappointed in me, maybe? I know… that sounds so stupid…” Her words get lost in the tears.

Yang is pained. She cups Blake’s shoulder as tears slowly flow from her eyes. She doesn’t say anything at first, figuring out how to respond. Something like this is pretty hard for Yang to relate. Yang has been attracted to girls since forever. Practically wearing rainbow colors on her sleeve every day. “Hey,” Blake sniffles, “look at me,” Yang says softly, and eventually Blake does, “I… haven’t told my mom either…”

“Summer?” She asks confusingly.

“Raven.” Yang admits, “she was here a couple months ago… for, I dunno, a business thing, and I didn’t tell her. I couldn’t tell her,” with a little confusion in her voice.

Blake shuffles over next to Yang, “she probably already knows…” it comes out shy and a bit slurred.

Yang sighs, “maybe…” She locks eyes with Blake, “but that kind of information needs to come from a primary source.” She points to herself.

Smiling with her eyes, Blake asks her, “Well we both need to come out to our parents, huh?”

“Yeah, we do… since, y’know, you’re kind of my date.” Blake laughs. Yang secretly loves it when Blake laughs at her jokes--well, she hopes it isn’t a secret. And she hopes she’s laughing at her jokes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Homecoming


	5. Homecoming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's homecoming bby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Approx date of publication: Apr 12, 2019; 2145/09:45pm CDT
> 
> *checks watch* it’s been a month huh ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Edit: updated the tags

“Hm. I really wanna wear a dress, but I don’t wanna wear heels.”

“Okay, don’t wear heels then.”

“I agree with Yang. Ruby, if you wear heels, you’ll be taller than me, and frankly--”

Ruby gasps, eyes wide open, “JK, nevermind, I wanna wear heels to be taller than Weiss.”

“Ruby!” Weiss gasps in disbelief. Yang belly laughs at them.

Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang are at the mall. It’s a week before the homecoming dance, and the sisters are out shopping with their dates. They pass by a shoe store, still no luck on dresses for Yang and Ruby. Blake tosses an idea, “maybe we should focus on the dresses for now before we look for shoes.”

“Yeah,” Yang has her hands on the back of her head, “you’re right,” referring to her date. Ruby and Weiss walk in front of them, heading for the department store up ahead.

Yang reaches over for Blake’s hand, but she pulls away. “Sorry.” Yang’s puzzled. “I’m just not really comfortable holding hands right now.” She’s proud and happy that she’s going to the dance with Yang, but something in the back of her mind tells her that she’s far from ready.

The other girl shoves her hands in her jacket pockets. “Yeah,” she nods, “I totally get it.” Yang said with sorrow in her voice.

“It’s just so public,” she sighs deeply, “and I don’t know who could be looking--”

“Dude,” Yang really called her crush that, “it’s cool,” she shrugs with her hands still in the pockets. They still walk side by side together, stopping as they see Weiss on her phone, standing off to the side. “What’s up? Where’s Ruby?”

“Disney store,” she answers, not taking her eyes off the screen.

Blake and Yang turn their heads over at the Disney store, Ruby nowhere in sight, “well,” Yang turns to the two, “she might be in there a while. Do you wanna do lunch?”

The heiress checks the time on her phone, it’s a little early, but lunch couldn’t hurt, “fine.”

“Same here,” Blake adds.

The food court is just around the corner, Yang peeks her eyes at it the best she can, surveying her options, “I’m feeling Chinese or Mediterranean.”

The other girl nips the inside of her lip, “Chinese works,” she looks over at the sophomore, “how ‘bout you, Weiss?”

Her eyebrows furrow, a mix of deep-thought and disgust, “I’m not too sure…”

“That’s all right,” the blonde makes her way around the corner, “you can--oof!” She bumps into Ruby, looking like a sad puppy dog, “Oh my god, Ruby!” She and Weiss surround her in concern. “What happened?”

The girl holds back a sniffle, “I got kicked out of the Disney store…”

Weiss internally calls her a dolt, but Yang has a different reaction. A firm hand on her sister’s shoulder, as she looks at Ruby, like the morning of the first day of the school year. “Hey.” Her silver eyes, on the verge of tears, make contact with Yang’s lilac irises, surely about to say some profound wisdom. “Let it go.” She makes a beeline for it, getting as far away from her sister as possible.

That was a mistake, “I’m gonna kick your butt!” Ruby’s faster than Yang, and she’s able to keep up, no problem. The fact that she’s no longer allowed at the Disney store quickly escapes her mind.

“They’re idiots.” Weiss comments, watching them, standing next to Blake. Ruby jumps on her sister’s back, nearly tipping them both over, but Yang’s able to keep them afloat.

“Yeah,” Blake agrees, a content look smeared all over her face, “but they’re our idiots.”

\---

The four of them reach the food court. After excessive deliberation, Ruby is the only one without lunch and is waiting for her order. Weiss offered to stay with her, but the younger girl was affirmative she should stay with Yang and Blake. Weiss, however, isn’t too sure about that.

“So,” Yang gets the attention of Weiss and Blake, but mostly Weiss, “you’re taking my sister to homecoming?” She already knows the answer to this, she just wants a confirmation from the girl herself so that it feels more than just a fever dream.

Finishing her bite, Weiss responds, “yes, I am,” shining a profound smile.

“So spill the deets,” Yang drops her eggroll, “who asked who out?” She begs Weiss like a child wanting to hear a bedtime story.

\---

It was a Tuesday. Tuesday lunch to be specific. Weiss had a exam the class period prior, so she was slightly late making her way to the practice rooms. She ended up near the end of the hall, where the slightly bigger room are, meant for ensemble players, and spots Ruby sitting in front of a piano. “Hello,” Weiss greets, Ruby scooting a bit, leaving room for Weiss, “sorry I’m late,” she sighs, grunting halfway, as she drops her things on the floor. “I had an exam, and it ran a little longer than I expected.”

“It’s okay,” Ruby says between bites, contentedly eating away her lunch.

Weiss joins Ruby on the piano bench. Her brain and stomach making the connection that she’s starving. She takes out the food Klein prepared for her and joins the freshman. They make small talk during lunch. Weiss tells Ruby about her exam earlier in chemistry. Ruby shares a story that happened during track practice that morning. They also talk about the musical and how close the show is; opening night is just one week after homecoming. A light bulb appears above Weiss’s head. “Speaking of,” she takes her eyes off her lunch, “do you have any plans for homecoming?”

“Ummm,” Ruby takes a sip of her drink, “maybe. I mean, Yang’s planning the dance, so I might as well join her. Football game, however… there’s a fat chance I’m not going.” She glances at Weiss. “Why?”

She builds up the courage to ask. “There’s a song I’ve been working on. Do you want to hear it?” Ruby flashes a smile on her face, nodding. Weiss takes out some sheet music and stands it on the piano. Weiss lines up her fingertips along the keys before playing, then she imprints the chords written on the paper. The melody she plays starts off slow, a little dissonant, but that’s intentional. As she gets to the chorus, the song becomes butter, clean and smooth, and she nips the inside of her lip in concentration. She reaches her right hand over on Ruby’s side of the keys to tickle the higher notes, sounding similar to the first verse, but this time, it’s more tonal, sounding like velvet. Her fingers stop playing and jump off the keys in the middle of the verse. “That’s all I have so far. What do you think?”

Ruby’s in awe, “I love it!” She takes a look at the music notes. “What’s it called?” Her eyes are practically glued to the music sheets. Before answering, she admires Ruby. She loves how her dark red hair is slightly longer since the first time they met. She has it tied up in pigtails during rehearsals, and it looks really cute on her. Her eyes drop down to her clothing. While she rotates her hoodies every once and a while, today she has on the sweater Blake gave her on her birthday. It’s not oversized like her hoodies, but it still looks really nice on her. Weiss then thinks back at the kiss on Ruby’s birthday. They haven’t talked about it since then, which could be good or bad, but she kind of wish they had more than that kiss. They could still have more than that single kiss.

“Do you want to go to homecoming with me?” Weiss asks, the air in her chest barely escapes from her lungs.

Her head snaps at Weiss, “I dunno about that Weiss,” Ruby rubs the back of her neck, Weiss’s heart drops to her stomach, “that’s a pretty long name for a song.”

“You dunce.” Weiss pinches the bridge of her nose.

\---

Yang and Blake burst into complete laughter after listening to Weiss’s story. Blake’s laugh fades out before Yang’s, who can’t stop cracking up. She even snorts a couple times, bringing Blake back to chuckling. Weiss just stares down at them, sort of pissed. Yang bangs her fist on the table, still going at it. “Sorry, Weiss,” Blake apologizes in Yang’s behalf. “We’re laughing with you, not at you.”

The blonde suddenly stops, “No I’m not.” Weiss rolls her eyes. “I’m absolutely laughing at you… that is so on brand for Ruby. My sister is hilarious.” She wipes a tear away from her eye.

Blake decides to lighten the mood. “Well, I think it’s really sweet of you to play her a song.” Yang stifles her laughter. The other two girls ignore her.

“Thank you,” Weiss cautiously eats her fast food salad--seeing Ruby head toward their booth.

She has a sandwich on a tray and hisses “sammitch,” as she plops down next to Weiss.

This is the person Weiss is taking to homecoming.

* * *

Neptune carefully spreads out printed restaurant chain logos on their cafeteria table. Sun watches him in confusion. “What the hell are you doing, man?”

There are at least a dozen, maybe more, logos on the surface--he combs his finger through his blue hair back in frustration. “I’m trying to see where we can go for homecoming dinner.”

Ilia jumps in, “you really have Hooters as one of your options?” She shows the boys the paper with the enlarged logo.

“Hey,” Neptune tries to defend himself, “I know what you’re into, Ilia.” He tried to be helpful.

She crumples up the paper, “I’m a feminist first. Yeet!” The girl launches the ball into space.

Sun shrugs at his bro, “I’m with her.”

“Shut up!” He stoops lower in his chair, pouting his lip.

Blake enters the fray, sitting between Sun and Ilia. “What’s all this?”

While Neptune is internally crying, Sun answers on his behalf. “We’re trying to pick a restaurant for homecoming dinner. You wanna help us?”

Multi-tasking between eating lunch and selecting a place to eat was the most entertained and pissed they all have ever been. Blake would point out a restaurant and they’d all have an opinion on it: the place is too expensive, the food is inedible, the place doubles as an arcade, etc. They narrow their options down between three restaurants, the three most obvious choices. Neptune sneers, “I hate all of you.”

“Just because these three are overrated, doesn’t mean they’re bad.” Ilia says to him.

Sun is slouching in his chair, “I wanna reconsider Dave and Buster’s--”

“No!” The three of them shout in unison.

Blake’s phone blows up, a series of text messages from one particular person, and she replies back, hiding her phone in her lap. Her lips curve into a smile. “Who ya texting?” Neptune asks her.

Dropping her phone on the table, she responds, “Yang.” She broke the news that she will not be flying solo to the dance with her friends the Monday after Ruby’s birthday. All of them took it well, promising they’d still be wearing matching suits together. “She invited me to go dress shopping with her and Ruby this weekend.”

“Wha’d’ya say?” Ilia asks her friend.

* * *

The four of them enter another store. This was maybe the tenth one today. And they were only looking at dresses for Ruby and Yang. “They’re probably all out,” Ruby teases.

Yang tassels her hair, messing it all up, “don’t jinx it, dude.” Weiss voluntarily combs her hair back neatly with her fingers.

“I mean,” Blake responds, “she might be right. You guys did wait until homecoming season to get your dresses.”

The older sister is offended, “Whoa, you’re my date, whose side are you on?”

Weiss interjects, “the side of not procrastinating.” Like a blue moon, Weiss and Blake agree with each other.

Before Yang could say something, Ruby stops their mild bickering, “Weiss and I will check back there,” she refers to the sale and clearance racks, “you guys can look around up here.” She has two thumbs up. “All good?” Everyone seems to agree and part ways to different sections of the store.

The younger girls make their way to the back of the store. Yang thumbs over the dresses on the rack. Blake isn’t too far, doing the same thing with a rack across from her. “So…” Blake breaks the silence, “what dress are you looking for exactly?” This was the final countdown. At first, they were just looking for whatever, not too picky for anything in particular. But now that the day’s been long, they can’t goof off anymore, so they get down to business.

She has a picture in her mind, “well, obviously we want to match with our respective dates,” Yang states. “But we also wanna match with each other.” She eyeballs the dresses on the upper rack. “Most likely texture-wise since, ya know, color’s kinda tricky.”

Finding nothing on Blake’s end, she follows Yang’s gaze up above. “What about those?”

Yang winks at her, “looks like we have the same idea.” Blake blushes deep red behind Yang’s back. Tall enough to reach it, she jumps up, and lowers the two dresses to her level. “These are perfect.” The two observe the dresses in Yang’s hands. Both have a similar style and texture. The only difference is the color: silver and gold. But not too flashy, just enough to compliment their date. “Ruby!” She calls out her sister’s name.

In almost an instant, Ruby appears before their eyes. “What--OMG!” The young girl exclaims, eyeing the silver dress. She takes it in her own hands, really milking the feel. “It’s not too rough on the inside… is this my size?”

“Yeah,” affirms Yang, “go ahead and try it on.” Her sister races for the fitting rooms, Weiss following behind. Yang holds her dress up against her chest for Blake to see, not leaving any suspense whatsoever. “So…” Yang wiggles her eyebrows at a rosey blushing Blake. “Whad’ya think?”

Blake interlaces her fingers in Yang’s free hand, “you’re gonna look like an absolute snack.”

Lingering on their grip, she looks at Blake, “we both are.”

* * *

The doorbell rings. “I got it!” Taiyang shouts, already making his way to the front door. He opens it an immediately recognizes a familiar and new face. “Blake, it’s been a while.” Yang’s date struts in, softly greeting him. She’s wearing a dark purple velvet suit jacket along with black dress pants and heels--looking dapper as ever. Tai turns back to the other young girl outside, “Weiss?” He guesses, dragging out her name a bit.

“That’s correct.” She shakes his hand as she makes her way inside. “I’m Ruby’s friend and her date tonight.”

“Well, I’m her dad, Taiyang. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.” He plants his feet in front of the bottom of the staircase, and booms, “Girls! Finish up getting ready! Your dates are already here!”

Weiss quietly and awkwardly leaves the scene. She catches Blake chatting with Summer in the kitchen. The older woman notices her and waves her over. “Hi, Weiss. Would you like anything to drink?”

“Water, please, thank you.” Summer fetches her a glass. Weiss sees an identical glass of water in Blake’s hand. After pouring herself some clear liquid from a pitcher, Summer compliments Weiss’s dress, saying how Ruby will love it. Her white dress was nothing compared to Ruby’s she briefly saw at the mall. Plus, unfortunately, her heels were already killing her. They were new from their shopping trip and she didn’t have time to break into them, yet. “So where are we going for dinner?” She asks Blake.

Glancing up from her phone, she answers, “Cheesecake Factory.” Weiss makes an unknowingly grimace. “It’s safe, I know,” Blake sighs, “but they have floral decorations outside so we can at least take pictures.” A text notification pops up on her phone. “It’s Yang.” Blake squints at her screen. “She wants me to play ‘Lay All Your Love On Me’ by ABBA.” Her and Weiss share a look. Another text comes in. “We have to wait down here… I guess.”

The two make their way over to the base of the staircase. Blake starts playing the song. Synths starts blaring from the girl’s phone. They blankly stare at the top floor, eagerly waiting for something to happen. Famous last thoughts. As soon as the lyrics are sung, Yang’s bedroom door swings open and she appears, ready for tonight, minus the heels. Her gold dress sparkles like the sun and suits her really well. Maybe a little too well for Blake, but she didn’t mind. Yang bobs her head to the beat, lip syncing along to the song. She slowly makes her way down the stairs. The two girls are mesmerized--probably because this is the dumbest thing they never expected to see. Yang takes her final steps and seductively stares down Blake during the chorus. She prances around them, not leaving each other’s sight. Still singing, she begins interpretive dancing really poorly. The last part of the song comes on. Yang crawls on the floor like an animal. She reaches Blake’s feet and slowly rises up, not leaving her eyes. Yang repeats the lyrics until Blake could only see the other girl’s lips incredibly close to her face. She thinks about leaning in, not caring at all about Weiss being there.

“Got it!” Yang’s head turns to the sound of Ruby’s voice. She pants heavily, her chest rising up and down. The song fades. Blake blinks back to reality. “What’d I tell you?” Ruby talks to Yang. “It takes one ABBA song to--” Her sister’s hand cuts her off. They dart their eyes at Weiss. “Oh.” Ruby gently tosses the small box in her hands. She stands in front of Weiss. “This is your…” nervously comes out of her mouth, “corsage.” The young girl finishes, having a difficult time say “corsage.”

Weiss takes the gift. “Thank you, Ruby.” She tenderly opens the box, revealing a clean white rose tied around a lace wrist strap. “Oh my goodness, Ruby.” She gasps in awe. “This is beautiful.”

“Thanks!” She rocks on the balls of her feet. “It’s from my mom’s garden.” Weiss turns to the front door where the rose bushes are. “Fun fact: it took me one whole ABBA song to make it.” Yang palms her face. They help each other with their corsages. The sophomore takes a whiff of her’s. It’s still fragrant. While her head is down, the shoes Ruby has on catches her eye. _Converse_. Weiss sighs to herself.

Just as the girls were about the leave, Tai steps in front of them. “Before you go…” he extends the legs of a tripod attached to his camera, “pictures!” The sisters groan in annoyance, their dates smirk at them.

* * *

The Beacon high schoolers pack in with the other patrons in this Cheesecake Factory. It’s the usual gang. Yang’s still Blake’s date, but Blake’s friends tagged along with her because they all agreed to go together before Blake agreed to go out with Yang. Yang and Pyrrha had a similar idea. They agreed to go with their friends, plus Ruby and Weiss, and then Blake, Yang’s date, came from outside their circle of friends, so they all joined in with them. “This is way too complicated.” Sun groans. “I don’t even know who’s who anymore.” He and Blake talk outside the restaurant, waiting for their table. All their pictures were taken--all done before they get fat with food--he just asked her a simple question.

“It’s like the human centipede.” Neptune adds. “But worse.”

“Don’t be gross.” Ilia joins in. “We’re all just ninth wheeling Yang and Blake.”

Sun’s mind is blown. “Oh! That makes sense! Thanks Ilia.” He lazily hugs her. She’s stunned by his touch.

Ilia mouths ‘help me’ at Blake, who just rolls her eyes. “You put this upon yourself.” She whispers at her friend. A sudden arm flings around her shoulders. It’s Yang. “Hey you.”

“Hey yourself.” She nuzzles the side of Blake’s head. “You’re beautiful, did I ever tell you that?”

“Yes you did.” Blake starts counting with her fingers. “At your house, in the limo, and during our pictures.”

Yang smolders. “I’m just tryin’ to make up for missed chances.” She shrugs. Yang looks over her shoulder at the door. It looks like everyone else is heading inside. “C’mon,” she grabs her date’s hand, “let’s head inside. I think our table is ready.”

They reach the table and everyone peruses the menu. Weiss is sandwiched between Ilia and Ruby. She leans over at her date and asks her what she’s having since she’s never been to the Cheesecake Factory before. Plus, their menu is long enough to compete with the New Testament. Ruby gives Weiss her answer, making the heiress nauseated just thinking about that combination of food. Yang, who is between Blake and Pyrrha, cuts in--saying she’ll split with her sister. She needs to lower her weight class, and knows Ruby won’t finish her food anyway. Just across from Weiss, Blake offers to share her meal, she tells the other girl her order, and Weiss thinks what she’s having seems to be at least palatable. Yang whispers into Blake’s ear, asking how they’re going to pay for dinner. Weiss overhears this, “I’ll pay for our dinner, don’t worry.”

“You’re going to pay for our dinner?” Nora yells from the other end of the table.

Weiss looks at Nora to clarify. “I’m paying for the people who rode in the limousine with me. Everyone else is on their own.” The redhead pouts.

“Aw, Weiss,” Yang gushes, “what’s the occasion?”

She takes a sip of her water. “I’m paying for Ruby’s dinner anyway. It’s the chivalrous thing to do.”

“Weiss, are you cold?” Ruby asks her, placing her hand on Weiss’s bare arm. Before Weiss could correct her date without choking, Ruby persists. “Sun,” who’s on Blake’s other side, “lend Weiss your jacket.”

He looks between Neptune, on his right sitting at the head of the table, Ilia, and the younger girl. “Fine.” He begins stipping off his white suit jacket.

“Sun,” Weiss stops him, “Ruby,” she looks at the other girl, “it’s not necessary… at all.” Weiss patiently explains what chivalry is to Ruby.

The rest of dinner goes as expected. Everyone’s orders are taken and eventually their food arrives. They say grace. “Bone app the teeth.”

Everyone’s meal is completely devoured, leaving some room for dessert, of course. It is the Cheesecake Factory after all. Yang snatches the whole cherry off the cake. She plops the sucker in, leaving the stem behind. Blake notices this between bites and sees Yang stick the stem on her tongue. “You’re going to choke.” She warns loud enough for their ears only. But the other girl doesn’t answer. She’s too preoccupied trying to tie a knot. There’s an amused silence between them--Yang doesn’t break eye contact with her. A few moments go by and Yang sticks her tongue out to reveal the cherry stem in a little loop. “What, is that supposed to impress me?” She teases. Blake was thoroughly impressed, and the other girl knew it. Both of their faces beam a bright red; thankfully, the Cheesecake Factory is dim enough for nobody else in the group to notice.

* * *

They get to the dance, and sure, they have fun. Ruby takes a couple photobooth pics with Weiss and the rest of their friends. For most of the night so far, she’s just been hanging with Weiss, Jaune, and Pyrrha. The rest of their friends are either dancing, mingling, or in Yang’s case: working. Ilia and stopped by to see how Ruby and Weiss were doing. The heiress said she was enjoying herself, but Ruby can tell that the opposite was happening. She puts up the same demeanor when they have rehearsal…

The slow dance starts. The song is from the classic band, Jonas Brothers. In the middle of the dance floor, Ruby sees her sister split from her friends and meets her date halfway. Weiss is frozen in the chair. Ruby gets on her feet and holds her arm out for her date to take. Reluctantly, Weiss gets up and they make their way to the edge of the dance floor. Weiss starts to lead by taking Ruby’s hand in her’s. In one swift motion, she guides Ruby’s other hand to where it’s supposed to be and places her free hand on Ruby’s waist. They take a couple steps together, Ruby getting the hang of the dance fairly quickly. They exchange compliments to each other, which feels like the dozenth time tonight, but they don’t mind keeping the ball rolling. But then the songs starts to kick up. They switch roles, Ruby taking the lead now. She brings her hands up to wrap her arms around the base of Weiss’s neck. Weiss does the same around her date’s waist, bringing the two closer together. She rests the crown her head under Ruby’s chin, not even dancing anymore, just swaying off beat from the music. The song ends and a different song blasts from the speakers.

Ruby doesn’t want it to end though. She grabs Weiss’s hand and leads her out the gym--dodging bodies left and right. Finally reaching the doors, they make it out alive. Weiss is utterly confused but doesn’t say a word. “Sorry.” Ruby apologizes to Weiss. She rests her body against the lockers, Weiss joins her. “That song’s a jam,” she refers to the Jonas Brothers song, “but I really wanna slow dance with you.”

Weiss’s lips curve. She leans off the lockers, taking Ruby with her. “There’s a few basic positions.” She shows Ruby the basics of where to place her hands. “The footwork takes a little more practice, but if you know the rhythm, it all kind of works at the end.”

That’s as far as the two go. “What do you mean it all ‘works at the end?’” She giggles.

They stay standing in the slow dance position, not dancing, just being close together. “You know…” Weiss thinks about it for a second. “You have to account for mishaps like stepping on each others’ toes or being off rhythm…” Weiss turns her eyes away from Ruby’s. She’s now realizing just how close they’re standing.

An absolute bop is playing from the other room. Ruby recognizes the song. “Hey,” her silver eyes stay on her date, “do you wanna head back inside?”

“How about we stay out here for awhile?” Weiss suggests.

Ruby agrees and they settle on the stairs not too far from the gym. “Ya know, if you think about it, we’ve kinda gone, like, full circle.” She says, making a circle motion with her finger.

Weiss’s brows furrow. “What’s that supposed to mean?” She asks softly.

Her silver eyes are just able to make out Weiss’s blue. The hallway is fairly dim, but her white hair and dress constract in the dark. “I was standing in the gym,” Ruby directs their eyes at the main gym doors, “and that’s when I saw you walking in.” She leans forward, which was quite unnecessary since they were the only two in the hallway. “The first words I heard you say were ‘I’m here. That’s all that matters,’” Ruby speaks softly.

“I can’t believe you remember that.” Weiss’s deep-red blush is hidden in the shadows.

She hesitates, stammering, “well, it’s not like you’re hard to forget.”

Before Ruby could say anything else, Weiss says “I’m sure my tone and connotation were different back then.” She thinks aloud, a hint of guilt laying in her throat.

Ruby leans closer to Weiss. Their bare shoulders practically touching. “How do you feel about it now?”

The heiress avoids her question, trying to find a way around it. “Do you mind if I try something?” Ruby subtly nods. Weiss brushes her dark bangs out of her face, caressing her cheek in the process, and plants a sweet kiss on Ruby’s lips. She reciprocates quickly, smiling against the other girl’s mouth. This is objectively better than last time. The first time. The gym doors clang loudly nearby, both of them jump apart. A set of footsteps pass next to them and a group of upperclassmen leave to go outside to vape. The two are frozen still. Weiss lets out a breath she didn’t know she had. “I’ve been wanting to do that for about two weeks now.” Ruby’s mouth goes agape. She stands up from the stairs and rests her hand on the railing. “Come on, let’s return to the dance.” A sudden chill from outside rushes in the hallway, prompting Ruby to beat Weiss to hold the door for her, walking in after her.

* * *

After a couple hours of the dance, Ruby gets kind of tired. She tells Weiss, and they let Yang in on ditching the rest of the group. Blake’s fine with it, she tries telling her friends, but Sun and Neptune are T-posing around Ilia.

Before heading home, they get breakfast for dinner at Denny’s. They practically have the place all to themselves. The freshman has a cavity and diabetes inducing pancake breakfast, an item appropriately named on the menu according to Weiss. The rest of them have shakes and sides.

Their late dinner at Denny’s comes to an end. Klein pulls in front of Blake’s house first. The girl gets out and waits for her date. Blake whines, “come on,” waving Yang out the limo. Before following the dark-haired girl, Yang looks back at Ruby, and sees her and Weiss watching something on her phone. _She’ll be fine_. The older sister thinks to herself. “Hop in.” Blake settles in the passenger seat of her mom’s sedan, leaving Yang to drive it. She leads Yang to a lookout. The blonde was very suspicious about Blake going to murder her, but instead of a knife, she takes out a blanket from the back seat. They settle on a flat patch of grass not too far from the car. No one is around the area. No one… except them. They start talking. Just talking… for now. Yang is outrageously full from Denny’s. Blake too. She feels kind of bad that she ditched her friends behind. Yang tells her not to worry. They’ll get home eventually. Blake checks out the stars. She wishes she had a camera to capture the night sky. Yang lays right next to her. Her date briefly sits up, strips off her suit jacket, and lays back down, draping the material over them, holding hands underneath.

Yang spills something that’s been on her mind for months. “So Sun told me that you rejected him when he asked you out freshman year.” She’s not backing down now.

Blake looks over at her, confused. “When did he tell you that?”

“That doesn’t matter.” Yang dismisses.

“Okay.” She oddly accepts. “What about it?” Sun isn’t really on Blake’s mind right now.

Yang meets the other girl’s eyes. “Why didn’t you go out with him?” She asks.

Blake sighs--trying to think her words through. “I was pretty young.” She licks her lips. “I never thought that anyone would be interested in me… especially in that way,” she emphasizes. “And…” her thought goes back to Yang. “I had someone else on my mind, so it would be pretty wrong to be with someone you didn’t share feelings with,” she justifies her reason.

The blonde wiggles her eyebrows. “Who would that someone be… if you don’t mind me asking.”

“You.” Oh shit.

“Me?” Yang raises her eyebrows in disbelief.

Blake confidently nods.

“You were in love with me?” Yang’s ego and pride inflating all at once.

“Don’t put words in my mouth.” Blake spat. “I wouldn’t say ‘love’ is the right word.” Her gaze moves away from Yang.

She switches hands--propping her elbow up to support her head. The blonde gets a better view of Blake this way. “So what word would you say?”

Blake sighs. “Well, to me…” she pieces her thoughts together, “it’s more like a feeling.” She scrapes her bottom lip with her top teeth.

“Okay,” Yang plays along. “So what adjective would best describe that feeling?”

“You could say that I had mad feelings about you.” She mirrors Yang’s position--switching her held hand in the process. But this time it’s above the jacket.

“‘Mad feelings?’” Yang echoes. “Why not just say ‘love?’” Her eyes smile at Blake.

“I dunno…” Blake looks away from her, “for a four letter word, ‘love’ is a very strong one.”

“My name has four letters, too,” she jokes. “Yang. Love. They even--” she stops dead in her tracks--visibly spelling the two words out in her head.

Blake notices this. “Are you trying to spell out ‘love’ and your name in your head?” She rhetorically asks.

Yang blushes. “No?” She chuckles, “I was hoping they shared at least one letter… but they don’t,” she tries to explain herself.

The way Yang twirls a lock from her mane of a hair with a finger catches Blake’s admiration. They’re still holding hands, which are warm as ever, even in the chilly night. She had to be honest with herself. Being with Yang these few months have been absolute nirvana. Blake had wondered what their relationship would’ve been like in the past. She would constantly daydream about Yang when she was with him. Her eyes would catch the popping colors off a tweet about an under 18 rave happening downtown, and she would immediately think of Yang. The best part is: that didn’t have to be a dream anymore.

So she makes that dream happen.

Blake propels forward and gently clashes her lips with Yang’s. She doesn’t react at first, but after a few seconds, she comes around. She feels a slight tug in the back of her dark hair, but it’s affectionate. Blake lays her free hand between them as support. They quickly release. Blake eagerly going in for another kiss. But as she flutters her eyes open, Yang is out of sight. “Shit!” Comes out of the girl’s mouth.

“That’s romantic.” She teases. Her eyes find Yang pacing back and forth on a nearby patch of grass. The other girl is quietly murmuring to herself. “Hey, are you all right?”

She stops. “That was my first kiss.” Their eyes meet.

“No… no… no it’s not.” Blake shakes her head as she chuckles. Yang doesn’t have the same expression. “Are you serious?” She honestly couldn’t believe it.

“I’m dead serious.” Blake peers into her slightly dilated lilac irises. They don’t give off the same warm and safe look like they did moments ago. She’s not joking.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Yang breathes out.

The air is silent between them. The blonde continues pacing back and forth. “Yang,” Blake curls her fingers at her, “come hither.” She pats the empty spot next to her.

The other girl huffs on her way to the blanket--resting her head on Blake’s shoulder. “I really liked it by the way,” they chuckle, “my body just didn’t know how to react to it, I guess…”

A smolder forms on Blake’s face. “I just can’t believe womanizer Yang hasn’t kissed anybody yet.” She nudges Yang’s shoulder. “Like, you gave Ilia flirting advice.”

“And that’s all I know. Flirting.” She shrugs. “Think about it: I flirt, I do it well… and that’s all that happens. I don’t know where to go from there…” Yang avoids Blake’s gaze.

“Typically, now I’m no expert or anything,” she giggles, “there’s more than just playful flirting.” Yang’s warmth rekindles again. “You sort of test the waters with that, and then, things start getting serious…”

Yang nods, thinking about what Blake said. They’ve had so much fun over the last few months. And yeah, they’ve had some hurdles--like Ad*m and Blake still being in the closet. They were young, and she knew that. But does Blake feel the same way? Especially after ending an abusive relationship… and the rest of their lives really. “Well,” Yang sighs, “I’m ready if you’re ready…” she lays her eyes on Blake’s amber irises, “for the serious stuff you were talking about at least.”

Blake answers with a kiss. “I guess this means we’re girlfriends.” They kiss again; Yang doesn’t panic this time like she did earlier.

She breaks them apart. “But I get to be the girlfriend.” Yang points at herself.

“By all means.” Blake giggles against her girlfriend’s lips.

* * *

Weiss looks back at Yang and Blake outside the limo. “Miss Schnee.” Klein’s voice snaps her attention on him. “Shall we proceed to Miss Rose’s residence?” They were still outside Blake’s place. Yang probably isn’t coming back in the limo.

“Of course.” She affirms. He continues driving. Weiss closes the partition. Her eyes shift to Ruby’s phone, a pointless lifehack video plays on the screen. A sudden sore sharpens around her feet. “Gah, my heels are killing me.” She finally removes them off, knowing Ruby wouldn’t mind, finally letting them breathe.

“Hey, are you alright?” Ruby stops watching the video and sees Weiss’s heels on the floor.

“No.” A groan comes out. “I haven’t been able to break into these new shoes prior to the dance. My feet have been hurting all night.” Her gaze doesn’t meet Ruby’s.

“Here, let me help.” She immediately offers.

Weiss finally looks at Ruby. “Gosh, Ruby, you don’t have to--”

“I get foot pains all the time. After years of track, it does that to you.” She does have a point. “I don’t mind.” Ruby shrugs. Darting her eyes between the pain and Ruby, Weiss lounges her legs across the backseat. Ruby guides Weiss’s feet on her lap. “So, you just gotta rub it a certain way…” she gently adds pressure, “sorta like this…” a soft moan escapes the sophomore’s lips, but not like that, “does it hurt?” Weiss shakes her head, and Ruby continues.

* * *

After making out for at least thirty minutes, Yang and Blake return to stargazing. The Denny’s finally settled in their digestive systems, and Ruby texted Yang asking her where the heck she was. Yang hasn’t replied yet.

“Do you know what you’re going to do after graduation?” Blake sighs.

“No. Do you know what you’re going to do after graduation?” Yang asks back.

“No.”

Yang sighs. “Glad we’re on the same page.”

“I don’t know how or why people think we would have that all figured out at eighteen.” Blake vents, pouring a sense of wisdom. “You know what I mean?”

“Capitalism.” Yang simply states.

Her brows furrow. “What?”

“It’s the societal pressure to contribute to a capitalist society,” she says quickly. “University or college? Great. You get out of that and get a job to earn money. No school? That’s fine,” she shrugs. “You work and earn money.” She sits up. “All this bullshit just to function as a society without even considering some of us don’t want to be part of society. You get what I mean?” She breathes with frustration escaping her voice.

“I get what you mean, but unfortunately, the real world isn’t the same as a snapchat filter.” Blake plays devil’s advocate. “I’ve considered a gap year, but my parents said that’s off the table for me.”

“No. Screw that.” Yang gets up on her feet. “A gap year is _on_ the table… for me at least,” she dramatically gestures.

Blake leans back on her hands to get a better look at Yang. “What are you gonna do?”

“I want adventure.” She could picture it. “Just me, Bumblebee, and the road.”

“I love the sound of that, actually.” Blake softly smiles. “What are you gonna do after…?”

Yang shrugs, popping her dream bubble. “Whatever my intuition tells me to do.” She turns back to Blake. “How ‘bout you?” She crouches down to her level. “You go college bound, what’s gonna be your major?”

Blake sighs. “That stem’s my biggest issue. I’ve considered writing, politics, etcetera… but I feel like there’s more than that, ya know?”

Yang’s feeling her vibe. “Yeah yeah yeah!” She’s all hyped again. “The world is bigger than university or college. It’s… dynamic. Always changing. And…” Yang swats at her idea. “Nevermind, it’s stupid.”

“Now I’m curious.” Blake excitedly says. “Tell me!” She begs. “Tell me your stupidity!”

She shrugs and sighs. “Just because the world is changing.” Her lilac eyes meet the other girl’s ambers. “We all need a constant.”

Blake isn’t aware of Yang’s soft look. She’s in her own thoughts at the moment. “Yeah, I get that! I totally get that!” She look over at Yang. “So what’s your constant?”

 _You_. Yang wants to say. “It’s more like…” she hesitates, “more than one thing. You ready?” The other girl nods. “Ruby. I can’t see a world without her; I give her a lot of shit, but it’s like, harmless...” Although the two are biologically half-sisters, they don’t see it that way. They wiped out that formal part of being ‘half-sisters’ a long time ago. Ruby and Yang made their own meaning of the word. And everyone around them sees it that way, too.

Blake thinks Yang’s answer was sweet. “You’re a good sister, Yang,” she comforts. “If I had an older sister, I would’ve wanted them to be like you.”

Yang look at Blake in shock. “Are you sister-zoning me?”

“No! I’m not! Stop!” Blake knows what she’s up to right away.

Yang lowers her voice to sound like a dudebro. “‘Are you two, like, friends or something?’ No,” she switches back to her regular voice, “we’re more than that…” a sinister grin smears her mouth, “we’re like sisters,” she teases.

Blake rolls her eyes and doesn’t look at Yang. “Ugh. I hate you.” She doesn’t really. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“It’s okay, I forgive you… cause you’re my sister,” she teases some more.

“Yang…” Blake covers her face. “I swear to god, you’re not gonna let me live past this are you?”

* * *

Klein pulls the limo in front of Ruby’s house. Weiss’s shoes are still off, and her date concludes the innocent platonic foot rub. They turn their heads between the partition and each other. “I’ll walk you to your front door,” Weiss tells her shyly.

“Okay!” Ruby exclaims. She’s more agile than her date--sweeping the heels off the floor and exits the limo. The girl appears on the other side, in an instant, opening the door for Weiss. She thanks Ruby, who has Weiss’s heels in hand, as she gets out. They move like snails on the pathway to the doorstep. Neither of them really wanting the night to end. Eventually, they reach it. They face each other. Without heels, Weiss is just shy of three inches shorter than Ruby. “Did you have fun tonight?” Ruby rubs the back of her neck, sweating bullets.

She flashes a warm smile at Ruby to ease the tension. “I did. Thank you.” Her hands were behind her back--looking just as nervous as she is. “Did you have a good time?” Weiss suddenly remembered her manners.

“Yeah,” she wanted to look anywhere except her blue orbs, “I did. Thank you for paying for dinner.” Ruby chuckles uncomfortably.

Weiss is slightly more composed. “You’re welcome. Thank you for the corsage,” she looks down at her wrist, “I love it.”

Ruby mirrors her smile--soaking up this moment as much as possible. “So, what do we do now?”

Weiss giggles at her naivety. That’s a question she has always asked since knowing Ruby. She takes Ruby’s free hand in both of her’s. The glow of the porch lamp captures the red ombre streaks of her hair just perfectly. Weiss’s eyes drop down to Ruby’s dress. She loves the color of it--how the top starts with a lighter shade of silver and then gradients to sonic silver along the bottom of the skirt. Her outfit perfectly complemented Weiss’s dress. “Give Zwei a kiss for me,” she says sweetly.

“I will.” Ruby slips her free hand from Weiss and delicately traces her fingertips across a part of her hairline as she tucks a stran of white hair behind her ear, going in for a kiss. Weiss naturally holds on to Ruby’s shoulders, pulling her closer, deepening their kiss. A fairytale couldn’t write a kiss like this. Movies can’t do this kiss justice. They both break for air, Ruby giving her one last smooch for the road. She returns the heels to her--their touch grazing in the process.

“Goodnight, Ruby.” Weiss says over her shoulder as she makes her way to the limo.

“G’night!” Ruby waves at her as she walks away, “I’ll be thinking of you in my dreams!” _Don’t take it back, it’ll make it awkward, don’t take it back, it’ll make it awkward, don’t take it back, it’ll make it awkward…_ she chants in her head. Yang taught her that confidence booster, and at this point, she has to commit. Weiss doesn’t let her see her full faced blush as she gets inside the limo. Klein drives away.

As soon as the vehicle is out of sight, Ruby pumps her arms in the air. “Yeah!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter: Curtain Call


	6. Curtain Call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the final chapter. The musical is finally happening. But the real drama happens off stage ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Approx date of publication: May 15, 2019; 0000/12:00am CDT
> 
> Happy Birthday to my friend, SJ! ILYSM! This chapter’s for you!

“I’d like one ticket please.” Yang hands the appropriate cash amount for the musical.

“You better.” Blake playfully scoffs, taking the money and stores it in a little box. She’s running the presales for the show outside the cafeteria.

Yang rests her elbow on the table. “So, how’s the show going?”

Blake brings her face closer to her girlfriend. “It’s going pretty well.”

“I’ve seen Ruby--scratch that--I haven’t seen Ruby lately.” The tone in her voice becomes worried. “Those dress rehearsals are kinda messing up her homework and sleep schedule.”

“At least you’ll see her this weekend.” The other girl tries to be a little optimistic.

“Yeah, maybe.” She sighs. “But I was really hoping I’d see you this weekend.” Yang takes Blake’s hand in her’s. A slight chuckle barely escapes her lips as she stares longingly in Blake’s eyes. “I can get some flowers for you after the show--”

A giant blush creeps on her face. “I’m not even in it!”

“But you do so much.” They lock eyes.

“Yo,” Sun’s voice shouts from behind the blonde, “you’re holding up the line.”

“Excuse you,” Yang looks back at him, with tinted red irides, “we’re trying to have a conversation.”

Ilia flags him over, “I can help you over here, Sun!”

Homecoming was last weekend, but it feels shorter than that. Once she got home, Yang told her sister all about her and Blake starting their relationship, and sharing their newfound relationship status all over social media. Ruby begged Yang to stop and to leave her room because she was trying to catch some z’s. And that is some much needed rest, indeed. Ruby would end dress rehearsals way after the sky turned dark and stayed passed her bedtime in order to do her homework. Yang offered to help, but she felt like it wasn’t fair because Blake was also begging for help in the readings for class. Yang felt pretty left out seeing her friends get along in theatre, including Weiss. That’s all Ruby talks about. That’s all Blake talks about. But of course she’s supportive of all of them.

“Oh, before I go…” Yang takes out her wallet again, “I need two more tickets.”

“Oh?” Blake opens the little money box. She raises an eyebrow. “You’re gonna see all the shows?” She asks with a cocky tone.

“No… they’re for my parents.” She fishes out the cash. “Y’know, ‘cause Ruby’s in it.”

Blake takes the money. “Right, right…”

* * *

Musical dress rehearsals mean it’s time to nose to the grindstone. Of course, tonight the crew got to have dinner first. It’s always either cast or crew, depending on which side pissed off Goodwitch the least the day before. Tonight they’re having Sooubway.

“Okay, who do you ship in the cast?” Blake and Ilia mindlessly overhear their fellow crew members chatting nonsense. They’re freshman, so they have the energy to do so. The small group of girls chime in their answers. “Yaaassss. Those two are cute!”

“Aren’t they, like, actually dating, though?” Another one adds. Blake ignores them for now and looks over to see Ruby laughing with the ensemble cast and Weiss. She’s the only crew member there. Just a table across from them. The young girl has the attention of the cast… especially the leading lady herself. She eavesdrops some bits of the other table’s conversation. They rave about Ruby’s work on a set piece she created.

A soft smile comes across Blake’s face at the thought of Ruby really bonding with the theatre kids. “You know who else is cute together?” One other girl in the conversation quickly jumps in, a little louder between them than expected. Her friends anticipate her answer. And to be honest, so is Blake. “Ruby and Weiss.” The junior’s ears perk up at this. And judging by Ilia’s face, she’s just as surprised, too. These girls are Ruby’s age, so maybe they’ve got a more insider look than the rest of them.

Her other friends agree. “Yessss! Those two are so soft!” She gushes. Blake smirks and side-eyes Ilia. Her friend just shrugs.

Blake looks back at Ruby and Weiss. There couldn’t possibly any romantic coding between them. So she observes. She takes a hefty bite of her tuna sandwich. One of the lead male actors makes a remark that gets the attention of everyone at the tables nearby… except for Ruby and Weiss. The two are totally engrossed in their own conversation. They exchange cookies--Ruby realizing she has oatmeal raisin instead of her preferred chocolate chip. Blake’s mind told her they were exclusively platonic. She nudges her friend, “So, what do you think about Ruby and Weiss?”

“Well, being an expert lesbian and all, I’d be happy to give my input.” She drops her sandwich on the table. Ilia closely observes the other girls. “Hmmm.” She rests her first under her chin. “Let’s make a tally.” Blake furrows her brows at Ilia. “First,” she drops a finger, “correct me if I’m wrong, but they sit together everyday for lunch. I saw them together the first day of school, so I dunno if that goes for the rest of the year. But,” she shrugs. Implying that the rest of the days are accounted for. “Second,” another finger drops, “they went to homecoming together.”

“We all went to homecoming together.” Blake interrupts.

“But it wasn’t like how me and Sun went to homecoming together.” In her head, Blake thought it was true. The quartet planned to attend as friends. They established that from the start. But Weiss asked Ruby, not as a friend, but as a date. She remembered Weiss’s story a couple of weeks ago at the mall. The younger girl still is on Sun and her as a homecoming date. “Yeah, okay, I’m grossed out, too, just by thinking about it.” The younger girl mindlessly comments, noticing Blake’s thoughts expressed through her face. Still, she wanted to hear what else Ilia has to say. Ilia taps her cheek, thinking. “Last thing I can think of is rehearsals.”

The older girl raised and eyebrow. “Rehearsals?” She asked, perplexed.

“I’m the eyes and ears of the theatre, Blake.” Ilia scoffs. “I offered Ruby the chance to work with lights or sound, but she declined. Would you like to know why?”

Blake ponders for a moment. Ruby has been doing a lot of grunt work around the show. Basic painting, prop, and costume design were below Ruby’s skillset. The stage manager even noticed Ruby’s potential when she helped design a complex set piece. And it works! She remembered Ruby humming along to the songs that can be heard from the stage while they were cleaning the shop one night. The rest of the crew found the songs driving them mad sometimes, but the younger girl didn’t mind them at all. “Why?” Blake finally asks Ilia.

“Because she wants to stay with Weiss on the ground.” Ilia finishes the last of her food. “She didn’t say that exactly, but… it had something to do with wanting to frequently see the actors backstage throughout the show.” The stage manager commands most of the cast to wrap of their dinner. Blake checks over her shoulder and around the cafeteria to find a sprinkle of crew, excluding Ruby, left. “So to answer your question, Blake…” Ilia appears right behind her. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they do happen.” With that being said, she returns back to work.

* * *

It’s the opening night of the show. Taiyang finds his family’s seats. “Alright, this is it.” He plops down in his chair next to the aisle, followed by Summer. Yang hesitantly settles in her chair. The auditorium was pretty crowded. Yang had no idea a high school musical would gain this much attention. Maybe it was because Weiss was starring in it; she couldn’t tell. They had a pretty decent view--three seats near the middle.

But the teen didn’t just want to wait in the auditorium. She wanted to meet the stars of the show personally. “I’ll be back.” Yang shuffles between her parents and the row in front of them.

“Where are you going?” Tai asks, not believing his daughter would immediately leave as soon as they just arrived.

“Bathroom.” She lies. Yang exists the auditorium and makes her way around the performance halls. She’s been here a few times… but maybe not enough times to find the place she’s looking for. “Hey.” She flags down a kid around Ruby’s age with dark shaggy hair and hazel eyes. He’s wearing all black and most likely is part of the crew. “Where’s the girl’s dressing room?” He tells Yang where to go. “Thanks.” She hastily makes the necessary turns until she finds a cracked door with a room full of high school girls.

She knocks the cracked door, pushing it wide open, and immediately hears a chorus of “If you’re not part of the show, leave!” Echoing in her ears.

“Goddammit!” She almost trips on bags and costumes. “I’ll be here for two seconds, I swear to god!” Yang yells at the randoms. Her eyes fall onto Blake sitting on a countertop in the back corner of the room. Black covers her from head to toe. The other girl also spots Yang, and like a magnet, they pull each other together into a kiss.

“Gay.”

“Shut up Ilia.” Blake teasingly spat at her. Yang thought the exact same thing. The stage manager resumes her work, talking in a headset, and exits the dressing room. “What are you doing here?” She asks, tenderly holding Yang’s hands.

Yang shrugs. “Just thought I’d say ‘hi’ to my favorite person… wish her ‘break a leg.’ I dunno....” She says dopely.

“What am I, chopped liver?” Ruby cuts in their chat. She and Weiss are settled in the adjacent counter. The singer is touching up her makeup and is wearing her full costume for the first scene. “Where’s my kiss?” The younger girl quivers her lower lip.

“You get a kiss from me if you actually break a leg.” Yang chuckles.

“Aw.” Ruby says sadly. Weiss rests a comforting hand on her friend’s shoulder.

Turning away from the mirror in front of her, Weiss faces Ruby. “Ruby, how’s my makeup?”

“I’ll say the same thing what I said before soundcheck: it’s fiiine.” The young girl groans.

“Don’t be a pest.” Ruby giggles. “I want it to look perfect.”

Ruby looks over her shoulder to find Yang and Blake practically sucking each other’s face. Gross. But at least she wasn’t eavesdropping. The freshman leans over Weiss’s ear. “You always look perfect to me, Weiss.” A blush is covered by Weiss’s face caked in makeup. The sophomore immediately turns her face away from Ruby, making her chuckle.

“Hey,” Ilia pops in the dressing room again, “when you’re in costume and done with hair and makeup, head over to the dance room for circle time!” She commands. A few of the random girls file out, following the stage manager.

Ruby and Weiss share a look. “We can check if the hallway light catches the makeup differently.” Ruby suggests.

Weiss scans the half empty room, Blake, and Ruby. “Good idea.” The two join the rest of the cast and crew outside.

Blake does the liberty of breaking up their kissing. A desperate moan escapes the blonde. “I have to go.” Their hands minick a scene from Renaissance painting, reaching out for each other as Blake heads for the door. “You should probably head to the house.” Blake stops in the doorframe and looks back at Yang. “See you after the show.” She blows a kiss and Yang dramatically catches it, making Blake giggle as she goes.  
\---  
Yang enters the auditorium doors again and scans the room for her parents. She finds them… along with her uncle and Raven. “Shit.” Comes out under her breath. Yang grabs hold of a fistful of her hair and heads back to the dressing room. The hallway is dimmed now, so her view was pretty hazy, and she couldn’t really tell where she was going at this point. The last thing she heard from anyone in the show was about a circle. And it was in the dance room. She has no idea where that is, and she doesn’t want to risk getting lost. The show is probably starting now. Yang has given up at this point and huddles against some supply door.

“Yang?” A voice calls her name.

She looks up. “Blake?” But it’s not. Yang’s vision clears up to see Weiss staring down at her with a worried expression. “I need to talk to Blake. Where is she?”

Weiss sighs. “She’s out there.” The younger girl points at a propped open door leading to the back of the stage.

The blonde nods, turning her head away from Weiss. “So what are you doing back here?”

She makes herself small. “I’m waiting for my cue.” The overture can be faintly heard from the halls. “So, how about yourself? Don’t you have a seat for the show?”

“Yeah,” she sighs, “but my mom’s out there, and I don’t really wanna see her…” Yang holds back tears.

Weiss takes a minute to process. “Summer?”

“No.” Yang shakes her head. “Summer’s Ruby’s mom. My birth mother is who I’m talking about.” The older girl gives Weiss a brief rundown of her situation. Raven only visits for two reasons: for work and whenever Yang fucks up. The times she showed up for work were given at least a day’s notice. Surprise visits only happened one other time: last year, when Yang posted that obscene picture of her on Instagram. Raven literally doesn’t show her face otherwise.

The opening song starts. Weiss could hear the girls playing her main friends singing. The younger girl sighs, “get up.” Yang looks up at her, offended. “I’m in costume, Yang, I can’t ruin it.” She defends herself.

Yang thought it was quite harsh. “What a great friend.” The blonde teases her. She slowly gets up, supporting herself against the wall. Yang checks out Weiss’s costume. She has a blonde wig to go with it. Oddly enough, it looks pretty natural on Weiss. “I expected a little more pink.”

“I have a pink dress under this one.” She reveals the pink dress under the pearl white one.

The blonde gasps in child-like amazement. “Dress-ception.”

She rolls her eyes. She and Ruby really are sisters. Weiss thinks about what to do with Yang. Her cue on stage is coming up, and, unfortunately, that’s not enough time to help her. She lets Yang know she has an idea in her beautiful brain of her’s. Hopefully, her temporary solution is enough. The heiress presses the button on the intercom in the green room. Everyone who has a headset should be able to hear, including Blake, who’s waiting in the wings of stage right. “Ilia,” she speaks in. The stage manager is in the middle of the house, right next to the soundboard, and is able to see the stage in full view.

A crackling comes from the other side. “Yeah?”

“Is there anybody in the front row of the right side of the house?” Weiss invited her family to watch tonight’s performance. But knowing them, not showing up was expected.

Ilia’s voice comes back on. “No.”

Weiss thanks her and releases her finger off the button and turns back to Yang. “You can sit there for the time being… to avoid your mother.”

“Yeah, okay.” Yang begins heading back to the auditorium. “Hey, Weiss…” her lilac eyes meet the other girl’s blue, “thanks.” The two share a soft smile.

The junior finds the front row seats Weiss was talking about. Weiss’s driver, Klein, occupies one of the five vacant chairs. She settles in just in time to catch a little dog come on stage. Weiss appears shortly after and sings her part. It just occurred to Yang that this was the first time she’s hearing Weiss sing. And damn, she’s really good.  
\---  
The main curtains draw to a close. Yang checks her program and sees the first act is over, and it’s now intermission. The lights in the auditorium come up. She checks her phone. Blake texted her not too long ago, asking if Yang’s okay. She types back that she’s better thanks to Weiss. There’s another message she received before the show from Summer. She asked where she was. Yang also gives her an update, texting that she’ll rather stay where she’s at than sit with them. Yang looks over her shoulder at the section her family is at. They’re all talking with each other. Looking at her phone again, her step-mom replied back. She was fine with it. Yang let out a breath she didn’t even realize she was holding in.

Yang sighs back in her seat. She turns to the program again and scans the cast and crew biographies. Ilia’s the first one she sees. This is the second show the sophomore stage managed. Yang also finds out that Ilia has a foster family. Blake’s biography comes up next. She’s been working shows for three years… impressive. In her gratitudes, Blake mentions Yang as her girlfriend, followed by her cat. Yang’s heart flutters at the words on the paper, but she’s also perplexed to see Blake appreciate her cat more than Yang. She also wondered when Blake wrote her biography, thinking it was very bold of her if she wrote it before homecoming. Yang jumps ahead to Ruby’s little paragraph. There’s not much on it, but the words “my parents, sister, and friends” in her gratitudes made Yang smile. And speaking of friends, Weiss’s biography was right after Ruby’s. Her’s was a bit girthier since she’s achieved so much in her fifteen years of life. Weiss’s biography looked like it came straight from her Wikipedia article.

The lights in the room flash slowly. The intermission was about to end. Yang quickly tucks the program away and looks back up on stage.  
\---  
Yang claps as soon as the lights go down. A few seconds later, the ensemble cast bows on stage. She hears a couple rows behind her give a standing ovation. Some other familiar faces walk in next. The more and more they show up, the audience gets louder. Lastly, Weiss struts in from behind center stage. Yang does a standing ovation for her. She even whistles just for kicks, and sees a glimmer of her blue eyes glance at Yang’s direction. Weiss bows and an absolute uproar of applause thunders in the auditorium. The main curtain finally draws to a close.

The teen left her parents behind to meet Blake in the hallway. Before she could even see her girlfriend, Ruby appears. “Hey,” her younger sister jumps into her arms for a hug, “I’m so proud of you, Rubes!” More of the cast and crew were coming from all kinds of doors in the performance halls. She guided them off to the side. “Where’s Blake?” Yang didn’t even give her sister a chance to say anything.

A huff comes from her. “She’s either in the green room or the shop.” Ruby vaguely points behind her.

“I have no idea what those two things mean.” Yang lets go of her hold.

“Don’t worry, she’ll be out any minute.” The younger girl’s eyes catch the sight of their parents and she rushes past the sea of people to greet them.

A few moments did past by. She got a glimpse of Ilia, but she looked busy. Sun and Neptune were around, because of course they are, and came by to chat with Yang. The two boys haven’t seen Blake either. “Oh,” Sun starts explaining, “she’s normally busy with actors cause their costumes need to be all neatly hung or whatever.” He says with a chilled slur in his voice.

Yang had a slightly confused look on her face. “And how do you know that?”

He shrugs, hands in his pockets. “We were in the same technical theatre class freshman year.” That didn’t seem convincing enough. “Helping out for a show was extra credit.” Yang still wanted to know more. “I was on lights in the booth and Blake was backstage.” She nodded in satisfaction with his answers.

“Well,” Neptune sighs, “speak of the devil.”

Yang and Sun follow his gaze and spot Blake with Weiss on her tail, leaving the green room. The junior’s face immediately lights up at the sight of Yang. What happened next was like a scene from a movie. They carefully made their way around the crowd and met in the middle of the busy hall. Before they could even say anything to each other, Yang held Blake in a warm embrace, and they just absorbed each other’s presence. Blake’s the one to lean up to kiss Yang. Then another one with more passion, if that’s even possible. Until a gruff cough suddenly broke their kiss apart.

It was Ghira.

Kali was right next to him.

And Blake had some serious explaining to do.

* * *

Summer was both Yang’s hero… and nemisis. Right now, she didn’t know which role Summer was playing tonight. On the plus side, she invited Weiss and Blake over for dinner. They decided to celebrate after the show. And what better way to celebrate than a simple little barbeque in the middle of almost winter. The festivities were indoors, but Tai did the honors of grilling everything outside. And the villainous thing Summer did that night was invite Raven and the Belladonnas, too.

Yang’s eyes narrowed looking around the room. She was in the den with her friends. The same den and friends Ruby had her movie watch party the night of her birthday. The dads, and Qrow, huddled in the kitchen area to get dinner going. Summer and Kali were catching up. And no sign Raven to be found. Instead, a young woman working for Raven timidly walks toward Yang. She beckons her to join her mother outside. _Typical_ , Yang thought. Raven didn’t even have the balls to do it herself.  
\---  
Yang takes a step outside the backyard. Raven is settled on the deck chair, placing her wine glass on the table. She’s still in her suit she wears for work, but her hair lacks the same attention. Her red eyes look up from her phone at Yang. “Are you just going to stand there?” Yang’s too frozen to speak or move. Maybe she didn’t have the balls either. “Please, have a seat.” The older woman pulls up a chair next to her and she hesitantly sits down.

“Why are you here?” Yang seemed more pissed than worried right now. She’s always been that way toward Raven. Recalling the events from last time didn’t seem to help either. But behind that anger was pain. Which Raven would call weakness. She secretly already knows the answer to her own question.

Raven immediately gets down to business, ignoring pleasantries. “So how was your homecoming?” Yang knew it. All the cogs in her brain were working simultaneously. She posted the pics of her and Blake, clearly as her date, together all evening until the end of the dance. So this is how Raven was gonna find out.

“It… it was good.” Stammers out of Yang’s lips. She could feel her heart pounding against her chest. She could feel herself getting hot again. Even if it was almost December, the cold air wasn’t enough. The heat was still very much present.

“Your date was part of the show. Correct?” Raven tries to make polite conversation. Which startled Yang, to be honest. Pleasantries weren’t really her thing. No ‘how are you, Yang’ coming from her mouth anytime soon.

Yang might as well play along. “Yeah.”

“Yes. I saw her biography. I’m impressed with it. She’s also very pretty.” That was a genuine compliment. Raven seems to be okay with all of this. It was odd. For sure. But what would Yang know. She barely even knows Raven.

“So…” Yang felt a gulp in her throat, “you don’t have a problem…” she purposely makes herself as small as possible, “with me being gay?” She finally lets out.

The older woman shakes her head and sighs. “Yang, why do you think I left your father in the first place?” The blonde shrugs. “I didn’t love him. It had nothing to do with you. I eventually found someone else.” Her gaze falls on her collegue inside. Yang’s eyes follows her mother’s and spots the woman accompanying. She was probably a law student, judging by her attire. Her cropped hair made her look her age, which was probably a few years older than Yang. Her whole body language screams boredom, and she’s clearly just waiting for Raven to wrap her business. “But not even that was perfect.” Yang snaps her head back to her mother. Raven takes a sip of her wine. “Love’s hard, Yang.” She says, placing the glass down. “If I remember correctly, Summer mentioned you and Blake were friends a couple years back. And now you found each other again.” Raven’s piercing red eyes really locked with Yang’s. “Hold on to her, Yang. Don’t make the same mistakes I made.” She sighs. “If you play your cards right, she’ll keep coming back,” she starts to get up, “and maybe, if you’re both lucky,” Raven looks down and her daughter, her wine glass in hand, “even stay.”  
\---  
Yang didn’t move from her chair. The wind blew in her face a few times, not really caring about the cold or how long she’s been sitting there. All she’s been doing is thinking. Thinking about what Raven just said to her. From the front of the house, she could hear a car start up. Raven’s back to being gone again. But another sound grabs her ear. The sliding door opens and closes to reveal her girlfriend. Somber is written all over her face. She says nothing for a while and just joins Yang at the table. She scoots her chair closer and rests her head on the blonde’s shoulder. They just sit there for now.

“I’m sorry you had to come out to your parents like that.” Yang was the first one to speak up.

“It’s okay.” They lock eyes. Yang’s look worried. “Really.” Comes out faster than she anticipated. “I’d rather have them find out now than before I leave for college.” She giggles, hoping the tension will go away.

Yang gives Blake puppy dog eyes. “So were they cool with it?”

“My mom is… of course.” They share a soft smile.

“Yeah, that’s Kali for ya.” Yang grins like the sun. “And your dad?”

“He…” Blake looks down with uncertainty and sadness. “I dunno.” She continues to avoid Yang’s eyes. “He might not even want to talk about it again. Ever.”

“Shit. I’m sorry, babe.” Her arm wrapped around Blake’s shoulders.

“No. Don’t be. Seriously, this is for the better. Ultimately. I hope.” Her voice is still shaken, though. Whether it’s from the chilly air or something else, Blake couldn’t tell.

The door slides again, a two pairs of footsteps shuffle over. “Are you two brooding, again?”

Blake and Yang look over their shoulder of the voice belonging to Weiss. She and Ruby each hold two plates filled with food. “I don’t ever recall the first time brooding, Schnee.” Yang teases her.

The sophomore rolls her eyes. “Oh please, since when are you not?” Ruby’s reaction indicated that was absolutely the most savage thing Weiss has ever said.

“Being in high school in stressful, okay?” The blonde gets the last word in a panic. The four dive into their plates, especially since they haven’t eaten since lunch that day. Yang mostly listens in her friends’ conversation. Seeing as she wasn’t part of the musical, all the inside jokes they had went right over her head. “Weiss.” The blonde gets the heiress’s attention, “I don’t know if you knew this already, but Blake and I are officially dating.” Yang proudly proclaims.

She drops her fork and looks at her in shock. “What?” Weiss looks at Yang dead in the eye. “No way!” She exaggerates. “Really?” Her overacting at this point was starting to annoy Yang. “Wow!” Ruby was cracking up the entirety of Weiss’s gag. The older sister questions how Weiss knew. “Ruby told me.” The heiress side glances the blonde.

They divert from talking about the musical. Blake overheard one of the main actors is throwing the wrap party on Saturday. Yang gives her a grimace. And now they’re done talking about the musical. Ruby leads the conversation by talking her head off about track. She’s been looking forward to actually competing against other schools rather than her team. The older sister had a similar feeling. Blake was glad her schedule is finally clearing up. And a light bulb popped above Yang’s head.

“Date ideas!” Yang claps. “But it has to be either free or inexpensive…” her breath hitches, “because we have no monies.”

“How about the animal shelter?” Blake suggests. “That’s where I rescued Gammy. It’ll be nice to see that place again.”

“Oh my god, yes.” The blonde rubs her hands together. “Like a free zoo. I like it.”

Ruby jumps in the conversation with a gasp. “What if the shelter has a cat named Bongo?”

“Interesting.” Weiss focuses on Ruby. “Would you want to check it out?” She asks her with a little smile.

“Yes!” The younger girl squeals with glee. “I’d love love that!”

“Great.” Weiss schedules the date on her phone. “We can go this Sunday.”

Yang scratches her head. “Did you just plan our date for us?”

“Who said anything about bringing you two along?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank y’all so much for reading! Y’all made my first published RWBY fic extremely memorable and I can’t thank y’all enough from the bottom of my heart <3
> 
> Expect a fic from me for WhiteRose Week soon
> 
> So long partners - B

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys/non-gender specific peeps! Thanks for reading! If u liked it, go ahead and SMASH that kudos button! And tell me ur favorite part(s) in the comments! Yeehaw!


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